Marry me,” he says. “Become the Queen of Elfhame.
Prince Balekin smiles back as though their smiles could duel without the rest of them even being involved.
That’s the spirit.” Aaron hid a grin. He was already wearing his armband, just above his elbow. Somehow he managed to make it look cool. Call had tied his around his forearm and was fairly sure it looked like a bandage.
What could I become if I stopped worrying about death, about pain, about anything? If I stopped trying to belong?
People like Aaron act all nice until suddenly they explode and banish some annoying geezer into the void.
Crowns of flowers on our heads, shooting bows and arrows at the sky. Eating candied violets and falling asleep with our heads pillowed on logs. We were children. Children can laugh all day and still cry themselves to sleep at night.
I try not to be too conscious of his long fingers tracing over the paper, of the sick thrill I get when he looks at me.
I step out of my second life the same way I stepped out of my first, holding too few things and with great uncertainty about what will happen next.
Someone’s really sold you a bill of goods. Plenty of mortals are better at plenty of stuff than the Folk. Why do you think we steal them away?
They loved him because he was a prince and a faerie and magical and you were supposed to love princes and faeries and magical people.
I am no murderer,” says Cardan, surprising me. I would not have thought that was something to be proud of.
Fairy tales have a moral: Stay on the path. Don’t trust wolves. Don’t steal things, not even things you think no normal person would care about. Share your food but don’t trust people who want to share their good with you; don’t eat their shiny red apples, not their candy houses, nor any of it. Be nice, always nice, and polite to everyone: kings and beggars, witches and wounded bears. Don’t break a promise.
Be bold, be bold, but not too bold, lest that your hearts blood should run cold.
So it’s not as bad as it looks?” Call ventured. “Oh, no,” she told him. “It’s just as bad as it looks. But I’m very, very good at my job.
There don’t have to be first dates and second dates. We’re not normal. We can do this anyway you want. A relationship can be whatever you want it to be. We get to make this part up. We get to tell our own story.
You don’t know what you are.
He presses his mouth to the pulse point of my wrist, racing in time with my heart. “Mock me all you like. Whatever I imagined then, now it is I who would beg and grovel for a kind word from your lips.” His eyes are black with desire. “By you, I am forever undone.
Call and Tamara screamed. The car swerved, Call’s hands heedless on the wheel. That made Tamara scream even harder. All the screams woke Jasper and Aaron, who added their voices to the screaming. Havoc started to bark. Throughout all the commotion, Master Rufus just floated in the center of the car, looking annoyed and – translucent.
There’s a tipping point with lies, a point where you’ve said something so many times that it feels truer than the truth.
Our promises don’t matter. No one expects us to have any honor. Everyone knows we lie.