01c. 1975 ADI will tell you a story, one I used to tell to a little boy with dark hair. A silent boy who rarely laughs, who listened more closely than I realized. A boy who had a name and not a titleLeigh Bardugo / quote ↗
02c. 1975 ADThe person she liked best didn't like her enough to want more of her, and she didn't want to pretend that wasn't awful.Leigh Bardugo / quote ↗
03c. 1975 ADShe'd hurt him, but she'd attempted everything in her power to make things right. She'd shown him in a thousand ways that she was honorable and strong and generous and very human, maybe even more vividly human than anyone he'd ever known.Leigh Bardugo / quote ↗
04c. 1975 ADShe knew she should say something profound, something beautiful in response. Instead, she spoke the truth. "If we make it out of here alive, I'm going to kiss you unconscious.Leigh Bardugo / quote ↗
05c. 1975 ADShe rested her head on his shoulder. "You're better than waffles, Matthias Helvar." A small smile curled the Fjerdan's lips. "Let's not say things we don't mean, my love.Leigh Bardugo / quote ↗
06c. 1975 ADSometimes, the only way to get justice is to take it for yourself.Leigh Bardugo / quote ↗
07c. 1975 ADI promise, Matthias. I'll take you home.""Nina," he said, pressing her hand to his heart. "I am already home.Leigh Bardugo / quote ↗
08c. 1975 ADI tilted my head back, breathing deeply. It was a clear, moonless night, and after those long months underground, the sight of all that sky was dizzying. And so many stars—a glittering, tangled mass that seemed close enough to touch. I let their light fall over me like a balm, grateful for the air in my lungs, the night all around me.Leigh Bardugo / quote ↗
09c. 1975 ADSurvival wasn't nearly as hard as he'd thought once he left decency behind.Leigh Bardugo / quote ↗
10c. 1975 ADMal was quiet for a long moment. Then he said, “I’m not sure who my first kill was. We were hunting the stag when we ran into a Fjerdan patrol on the northern border. I don’t think the fight lasted more than a few minutes, but I killed three men. They were doing a job, same as I was, trying to get through one day to the next, then they were bleeding in the snow. No way to tell who was the first to fall, and I’m not sure it matters. You keep them at a distance. The faces start to blur.”“Really?”“No.Leigh Bardugo / quote ↗
11c. 1975 ADi prefer to think of the good times. Like when you held my hair as I was vomiting into a bucket.Leigh Bardugo / quote ↗
12c. 1975 ADAbruptly, Adrik snarled, 'I'm glad Sergei's dead. I'm just sorry I didn't get to wring his neck myself.''You'd need two hands for that,' saidLeigh Bardugo / quote ↗
13c. 1975 ADKaz had always kept himself at a remove from everyone. They’d wanted camaraderie, friendship, but he had never agreed to play their game, only his own.Leigh Bardugo / quote ↗
15c. 1975 ADThe names they gave were false ones, though the vows they made were true.Leigh Bardugo / quote ↗
17c. 1975 ADWhat about the nobodies and the nothings, the invisible girls? We learn to hold our heads as if we wear crowns. We learn to wring magic from the ordinary.Leigh Bardugo / quote ↗
18c. 1975 ADand the look they exchanged could have melted miles of northern ice.Leigh Bardugo / quote ↗
19c. 1975 ADWhy can a Grisha possess but one amplifier? I will answer this question instead: What is infinite? The universe and the greed of men.Leigh Bardugo / quote ↗
20c. 1975 ADAt that moment, the creature's back breached the waves, its body cutting through the water in a sinuous arch, rainbows sparking off the iridescent scales on its back. Rusalye.Leigh Bardugo / quote ↗
21c. 1975 ADI miss a good cup of tea, dancing, boys- definitely not rain.""We dance," Diana protested.Maeve had just laughed. "You dance differently when you know you won't live forever.Leigh Bardugo / quote ↗
23c. 1975 AD(...)And what did I want? (...)A chance to sleep easy in my bed without fear. (...) There were old wants too, to be loved for who I was, not what I could do, to lie in a meadow with a boy's arms around me and WATCH THE WIND MOVE THE CLOUDS. (...)Leigh Bardugo / quote ↗
24c. 1975 ADI think... sometimes when we find love we pretend it away, or ignore it, or tell ourselves we are imagining it. Because it's the most painful kind of hope there is. It can be ripped away so easily. By indifference. By death.Leigh Bardugo / quote ↗
