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“She draws him out of bed, and into the kitchen, and Henry sits on a stool and listens as she makes an omelet and tells him about the first time she flew a plane, heard a song on the radio, saw a moving picture. This is the last gift she can give him, these moments he will never have. And this is the last gift he can give her, the listening. And he wishes they could climb back into bed with Book, but they both know there’s no going back. And now that he’s up, he cannot bear the stillness. He is all restless energy, and urgent need, and there isn’t enough time, and he knows of course that there will never be. That time always ends a second before you’re ready. That life is the minutes you want minus one.”

“What would become of me?" Those shoulders - the ones she drew so many times, the ones she conjured into being - give only a dismissive shrug. "You will be nothing, my dear," he says simply. "But it is a kinder nothing than this. Surrender, and I will set you free." If some part of her wavered, if some small part wanted to give in, it did not last beyond a moment. There is a defiance in being a dreamer. "I decline," she growls. The shadow scowls, those green eyes darkening like cloth soaked wet. HIs hands fall away. "You will give in," he says. "Soon enough." He does not step back, does not turn to go. He is simply gone. Swallowed by the dark.”

“— Les anciens dieux sont puissants, mais ils ne sont ni bienveillants ni indulgents. Ils sont capricieux, aussi instables que le reflet de la lune à la surface de l'eau ou les ombres au sol par temps d'orage. Si tu persistes à vouloir les invoquer, sois prudente : prends garde à ce que tu leur demandes et sois prête à en payer le prix. Penchée vers la jeune fille qu'elle plonge dans l'ombre, elle ajoute : — Et, surtout, même si la situation est dramatique ou désespérée, ne prie jamais, au grand jamais, les dieux qui répondent à la nuit tombée.”

“She sank her teeth into his bottom lip, drawing blood, and gave a wicked laugh, and still he kissed her. Not out of desperation or hope or for luck, but simply because he wanted to. Saints, he wanted to. He kissed her until the cold night fell away and his whole body sang with heat. He kissed her until the fire burned up the panic and the anger and the weight in his chest, until he could breathe again, and until they were both breathless.”

“He’d never been afraid of the dark—even after the Shadows came and tried to kill him in the night—but that was because the dark itself used to be empty. Now it was not. He could feel it, whatever it was, hovering in the air around him, waiting until the sun went down and the world got quiet. Quiet enough to think. Thoughts, those were the waiting things, and once they started up, he couldn’t seem to silence them. Saints, how he tried.”

“I am not some genie, bound to your whim." He pushes off the tree. "Nor am I some petty forest spirit, content with granting favors for mortal trinkets. I am stronger than your god and older than your devil. I am the darkness between the stars, and the roots beneath the earth. I am promise, and potential, and when it comes to playing games, I divine the rules, I set the pieces, and I choose when to play. And tonight, I say no.”

“But that’s the whole problem, you’ve never felt called to any one thing. There is no violent push in one direction, but a softer nudge a hundred different ways, and now all of them feel out of reach. Blink and you’re twenty-eight, and everyone else is now a mile down the road, and you’re still trying to find it, and the irony is hardly lost on you that in wanting to live, to learn, to find yourself, you’ve gotten lost.”

“Only then did he hear the small gasp—a soundless cry—and feel his mother’s cold fingers tightening on his arm. He turned toward her. Saw the red stain spreading across the front of her dress where the sword had driven in. Through him. Through her. There, just above her heart. The too-small hole of a too-great wound. His mother’s eyes met his. “Rhy,” she said, a small, disconcerted crease between her brows, the same face she’d made a hundred times whenever he and Kell got into trouble, whenever he shouted or bit his nails or did anything that wasn’t princely. The furrow deepened, even as her eyes went glassy, one hand drifting toward the wound, and then she was falling. He caught her, stumbled as the sudden weight tore against his open, ruined chest. “No, no, no,” he said, sinking with her to the prismed floor. No, it wasn’t fair. For once, he’d been fast enough. For once, he’d been strong enough. For once— “Rhy,” she said again, so gently—too gently. “No.” Her bloody hands reached for his face, tried to cup his cheek, and missed, streaking red along his jaw. “Rhy …” His tears spilled over her fingers. “No.” Her hand fell away, and her body slumped against him, still, and in that sudden stillness, Rhy’s world narrowed to the spreading stain, the lingering furrow between his mother’s eyes. Only then did the pain come, folding over him with such sudden force, such horrible weight, that he clutched his chest and began to scream.”

“For what it’s worth,” said the Veskan prince, raising his blade. “I really only came for the queen.” His mother spread her arms, the air around her fingers shimmering with frost. “Rhy,” she said, her voice a plume of mist. “Run.” Before the word was fully out, Col was surging forward. The Veskan was fast, but Rhy was faster, or so it seemed as the queen’s magic weighted Col’s limbs. The icy air wasn’t enough to stop the attack, but it slowed Col long enough for Rhy to throw himself in front of his mother, the blade meant for her driving instead into his chest.”

“It was a stick-figure drawing. Two people holding hands. A thin man in black and a girl, half his height with short hair, and wide eyes. The stick-girl’s head was cocked slightly, and a small red spot marked her arm. Three similar spots, no bigger than periods, dotted the stick-man’s chest. The stick-man’s mouth was nothing more than a faint grim line. Beneath the drawing ran a single sentence: I made a friend. Victor. “You okay?” Eli blinked, felt the cop’s hand on his arm. He slid free, folded the paper, and put it in his pocket before anyone could see or say otherwise…Eli went back the way he’d come. He didn’t stop, not until he was safely in his car. In the relative privacy of the side street in Merit, he pressed his hand against the drawing in his pocket, and a phantom pain started in his stomach.”