“Jack?” Kade took a cautious step forward. “Are you…?” “There are only a certain number of possible ways to end that question, and the answer to all … - Seanan McGuire

It can be easy, when hearing about someone else’s adventures in a far-off, magical land, to say “I would never choose the mundane world over the fantastical. I would run into rivers of rainbow as fast as my legs would carry me, and I would never once look back.” It is so often easy, when one has the luxury of being sure a thing will never happen, to be equally sure of one’s answers. Reality, it must sadly be said, has a way of complicating things, even things we might believe could never be that complicated.

There would be time to grab something from the dining hall before she had to go to English class. The thought of having to analyze the poetry of Emily Dickinson without calories was enough to make her want to cry. Why adults constantly wanted to know what centuries-old poems meant was beyond her. Shouldn’t someone have found the right answer by now? Or at least an answer good enough to accept?

Time is the alchemy that turns compassion into love.