He learned what quickens human hearts, how the touch of lips could make two lovers slip into a niche between moments so time rushes past them.

Druj magic must be spoken aloud. Most commonly it's whispered. The magic is in the breath, and the shape of the breath as pressed by lips, tongue, and teeth into words determines the shape of the magic.

A sick dread began to fill her. Perhaps, she worried, she'd waited too long. Perhaps her eccentricity had lost its charm and become merely inconvenient. Could it be that he was bored? Happiness can turn like a tide for a young girl in love . . .

A thrill went through Kizzy. She imagined for a second that his eyes had silvered like a cat's. And she imagined he had looked right at her. She blushed instantly, even though she was sure she was wrong. Boys' eyes didn't find her in a crowd. Boys' eyes didn't even find her when there was no one else around. They sort of glazed over or fixed on some fascinating object in the distance.

Kizzy hated it all, and she kind of hated herself too, by association. She hated mirrors, hated her ankles, hated her hair. She wanted to climb out of her life as if it were a seashell she could abandon on a shore and walk away from, barefoot. No one else on the whole landmass of North America, she was sure, had such a stupid life.

There is a certain kind of girl the goblins crave. You could walk across a high school campus and point them out: not her, not her, her. The pert, lovely ones with butterfly tattoos in secret places, sitting on their boyfriends' laps? No, not them. The girls watching the lovely ones sitting on their boyfriends' laps? Yes. Them.