The boys wouldn’t come to save him. Only Hazel would. And…

She'd read once that if you ran into a bear in the woods you should avoid eye contact and you shouldn't run away, but…

— Anne Ursu

Jack believed in something—he believed in white witches and sleighs pulled by wolves, and in the world the trees obscured. He believed that there…

— Anne Ursu

“This is what happens on journeys—the things you find are not necessarily the things you had gone looking for.”

— Anne Ursu

“A sick-hued darkness overtook Hazel. There was ground, somewhere, and somewhere beyond that there was a palace, and somewhere beyond that was a witch,…

— Anne Ursu

“She hated this place. Nothing made sense. Nothing worked as it was supposed to. She was supposed to be learning things as she went…

— Anne Ursu

“She came in thinking she would rescue him, like some sort of story, like a little kid pretending to be a brave knight. He…

— Anne Ursu

“She did not like seeing her loved ones like this, bent over with sorrow; everything in her wanted to cry out, to thrash and…

— Anne Ursu

“Hazel knew her mother really meant I hope there is something you were dying to do at school today, that you are learning to…

— Anne Ursu

She looked at her shelves, filled with books in which the bad stuff that happened to people was caused by things like witches who…

— Anne Ursu

“I believe that the world isn’t always what we can see,” he said. “I believe there are secrets in the woods. And I believe…

— Anne Ursu

“...she wore weird baggy clothes and seemed like the sort of person who might tesser in some dark and stormy night.”

— Anne Ursu

“What are you supposed to do when something like that happens? Do you hold on or let go?”

— Anne Ursu

“You can’t just kill a swan and wrap yourself in its skin, you know. It takes something from you. In her case it took…

— Anne Ursu

“The house felt strange. Altered. Like someone had come in during the day and shrunk all the furniture just a tiny bit.”

— Anne Ursu

“It would not hurt, after all, to walk into the woods.”

— Anne Ursu