Did you really think there was any version of me you could create, in any reality, in any universe that would not – first, foremost, and forever – be loyal to MacKayla Lane?
Death will come, grief will rain down again and again, and the only way to survive it and remain an alive, passionate being is to pay the price of pain every time, or you will become as barbarous and icy as the Fae. It’s always going to hurt. But as long as you’re still capable of suffering you’re still capable of joy. Better the depths of hell and heights of heaven than the horror of feeling nothing.
Find a better balloon. One that’s real. Life is messy, complicated, and difficult. Relish it as it is. Quit expecting it to change. You might find you feel, well, normal then,” he mocks. “And realize life never was normal. You were just happy. Be it again. Your choice.
You must be meticulous about the thoughts you send out into the universe. It’s listening. Argue for your limits and, sure enough, they’re yours. You have to argue for your dreams.
In Fae and mortal realms alike, he who controls the press controls the world.
O ye of little faith. Why would you run? Do you still believe there’s any incarnation of you I wouldn’t want? Wouldn’t go after determined to share a life with, to the end of space and time itself?
You must be meticulous about the thoughts you send out into the universe. It’s listening.
Barrons gets my beast, thinks she’s beautiful.
Kindness and cruelty. He’ll get that in bed next time. Dark laughter rolls. “Bring it on.
I have a sudden lump in my throat. I didn’t know she felt that way about me. Most of the time I feel like I just bumble about and get lucky with the help of my amazing friends. The truth is, nothing I’ve ever done would have succeeded if I’d been alone. “It take all of us, Kat. Not just me.
I’ve become the most powerful stuff in the universe: love and hope wed to focused will.
We’re the love we give and receive, the actions we take when the world is chaotic and hard, what we demand of ourselves, and how we take care of one another in the darkest of times.
The Nine are my tribe now. And I’m keeping them.
Careful with that thing, lass. Unless it pleases you to ruin my shirts.
You cannot control me, lass. No one can,” he said wearily. “If I give to you, it is because I choose to give to you. And Lisa, I would choose to give you everything, if you would but permit.
I love books, by the way, way more than movies. Movies tell you what to think. A good book lets you choose a few thoughts for yourself. Movies show you the pink house. A good book tells you there’s a pink house and lets you paint some of the finishing touches, maybe choose the roof style, park your own car out front. My imagination has always topped anything a movie could come up with.
She gave him her most forbidding you-will-obey-me-little-boy-or-die glance. They waged a battle with their glares – his challenging, hers promising divine retribution – until with a gamin grin he leaped to his feet, slipped behind her, and was gone.
Last I was here, Winter was a desolate, iced landscape with drift blasting across the terrain, fogging the air white, tumbles of stone and ice and statues barely visible. Today it’s clear, if not sunny. Sun doesn’t exist in Winter; there lurks only an intermittently glimpsed frost-bitten orb of wan blue.
How did you combat it?” I felt it rising up in him, answering my call. Yet coolly, remotely, he thrust it away. He could have joined me, adding fuel to my fire. “You choose. Hero or villain.” “You told me you’re not the hero.” “Not the villain either.” “What else is there?” “A person that gets up every day and tries as hard as she can to live up to what she believes in. Aims for the stars. Misses sometimes. Tries again. Harder. With more commitment to protecting others and less selfishness.
Yet only abominations stalk, shamble, hulk, and scrabble through the Winter courtyard, most missing limbs, some split wide open like overripe, weeping plums, others turned inside out, wearing entrails for skin, blind eyes, deaf ears, and silenced mouths cocooned within, lying in raw, oozing heaps on the ground.
Acts done by my body against my will are not my acts.