Are you enjoying yourself?” I overhear Nicasia ask Locke once, as he joins them for a lecture. “Cardan won’t forgive you for what you’re doing with her.
You’ll know you’re really one of us when you get your name.
Jude and I had a misunderstanding,” Cardan says carefully. “But we’re not enemies. And I am not your enemy, either, Taryn.” “You think everything’s a game,” she says. “You and Locke.” “Unlike Locke, I never thought love was a game,” he says. “You may accuse me of much, but not that.
You’re nothing. The human species pretends it is so resilient. Mortal lives are one long game of make-believe. If you couldn’t lie to yourselves, you’d cut your own throats to end your misery.
This is what you wanted, isn’t it? he asks. What you sacrificed everything for. Go on. It’s all yours.
Perhaps I am foolish, but I am not a fool.
I liked you, you know,” he says. “I like you still.” For a moment, I wonder what would happen if I hauled off and punched him.
I don’t now if you noticed, but the guy is a real jerk.
I can feel myself start to tremble.
We show her that I am no feckless High King.” “And how do we do that?” I ask. “With great difficulty,” he says. “Since I fear she is right.
I’ve loved you from the first hour of our meeting. I loved you and despaired. Before I die, I want you to know that.
I was a fool”, I say, because i might as well admit it. ” I gave up the bird in my hand for two in the bush.
The problem with coming through something terrible and big is that afterward, you’re left feeling all the feelings that you shoved down and pushed away. For many long days, I have been terrified, and now, when I ought to be feeling great, what i want to do is hide under a table in the brugh with Cardan until i can finally convince myself he’s all right.
She didn’t have to use any magic. I trust you. I trusted you.
Remember, all you really get to control is yourself.
You might beg to differ. So long as you’re begging, he doesn’t mind a bit.
Boys change,” she told him. “And so do stories.
The hardest thing – the impossible thing – is to get past the memory of Cardan telling me he loved me. He said those words, and I didn’t answer him. I thought there would be time. And I was happy – despite everything – I was happy, just before everything went so terribly wrong. We won. Everything was going to work out. And he loved me.
Don’t lecture me,” Vivi returns.
You broke the Madden brothers. I remember them, Joesph, and I remember what you did to them.