“I just had no interest in being trapped in this town forever, and I was not in the habit of having relationships with coworkers.”

This observation relays a clue about Callie’s character: She is something of a loner, living a peripatetic life. It also ironically foreshadows the events to come. While she will not be trapped in Willow Springs proper, she will be imprisoned by the Fae prince.

“I had goals and dreams, and they didn’t involve love. Love made you hurt. Love made you distracted and inevitably sad and empty when it fell apart.”

Again, Callie keeps herself distant from others. As the novel develops, many reasons for this are revealed, primarily the fact that she lost both her mother and her sister to a car accident. This is also a common trope to the romance genre, the reluctant lover who is eventually won over by their match.

“I was set to make my plea, asking how I could become a fairy as well, when a sudden gust of wind, quite unlike anything I’d ever felt still to this day, flung me several feet away from the tiny fairy and onto my back.”

When Callie sees the golden fairy as a child, her first instinct is to wish her way into the realm of the Fae. Thus, Callie’s connection to the Fae is formed when she is very young. She wishes to be like them, and this ultimately explains her undercover identity as an assassin: She will do anything to prove her loyalty to the Seelie, to be able to join their court and regain the missing half of her heart.