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My name’s Toby Daye. I’m half-fae, half-human, and depressingly excited by the idea of being able to pay for name-brand cereal.
“Right,” I said. “You’re here to piss me off.” “You seem to view it as one of my strengths, and I like playing to my strengths.”
“Get a life.” “I’ve got yours.
“You might want to let go of me now.” “Toby, you don’t—” “See, if you don’t, I’m going to feel compelled to try breaking your fingers.”
This is serious.” “It’s always serious to heroes, but they can’t save everyone.
I don’t know what to do.” “You’ll do whatever needs to be done. You always do.”
Anything’s a weapon if you know how to use it.
“How much of who you are is what you are?”
It’s a night of dancing, drinking, and welcoming the summer. In short, May’s sort of party. My sort of party involves less of a crowd, and a lot more physical violence.
Raven-dancer, skinshifter cousins of the Swanmays, probably from one of the flocks that originated in India.
To write
“I’m a raven.” She shrugged. “We’re psychopomps.
she wants to be an omen of death when we’re not hanging out, that’s cool.” “So you’re saying you don’t mind if your girlfriend has a job?” “Pretty much.”
You can live your life in “should” and never change anything. What’s done is done.
He tugged me onto the floor, still cautious. People parted around us, making room for us to move without knocking into anyone. It helped that he was recognizably a Selkie, with fingers webbed to the first knuckle and short brown hair stippled with gray like the blotches on a seal’s coat—even people who didn’t know that he was the husband of the current Ducal heir would move aside, out of politeness.
I was standing close enough to see the edge-to-edge darkness of his eyes, irises blending seamlessly into pupils. They were the color of the sea at midnight, and
Ellyllon
.
Better cranky and alive than cheerful and dead.
Tybalt was a cat before he was anything else. If something didn’t affect him personally, he was unlikely to give a damn.
I was holding as tightly as I could, and she was slipping away. What’s the point of holding on if I can’t save the ones I can’t afford to lose?
“Don’t run yourself to death until you know you have no choice.”
serial killers and sleep deprivation are practically part of my daily life.
There’s no place in the human world for fae, and no place in the fae world for humans. I just wish they’d stop trying to meet in the middle. It’s too hard on the kids.
“He says I’ll never be King if I’m weak enough to cry.” I frowned. “Crying isn’t weak. It’s good sense. It means you know it’s all right to mourn the dead and let them go.”
I wasn’t losing my mind. Just my friends.
I needed Tybalt, and I needed him now, because I trusted him enough to let him be the one to decide whether he couldn’t trust me anymore.
He was still smiling, and somehow, that made me feel better. The world was falling apart, but Tybalt could find something to smile about, even if I wasn’t sure what it was.
“Yes. If you’ve lost your mind, I’ll kill you. Just me, and no one else. I’ll take you to the place that no one leaves, and I’ll take you there alone.”
I hadn’t seen a room that cluttered since January O’Leary’s office, otherwise known as “the place where paper goes to die.”
“Chemistry professors who wind up with dead women in their labs don’t get tenure, and I don’t want to change jobs for at least another thirty years.”
I don’t want to be forced to shake my finger at you in a threatening manner.”
by putting my life in Tybalt’s hands, I’d declared my trust for him. That was unsettling. I trusted Tybalt enough to let him decide whether or not I should be allowed to live?
“Hello, Your Grace.” I bowed. The Queen’s men hastened to do the same. “These nice men were just arresting me.”
In the end, there’s never a sanctuary. You run until there’s nowhere left to run to, and then you fight, and then you die, and then it’s over.
“No matter how bad the world gets, you still have to feed the cats.
He’d try to save the day if I gave him the chance, and he’d fail. He wasn’t made to be a hero. I was.
“I’m a hero. That’s what Faerie made me, and I think my father would be proud. I don’t want to make this choice again, because there’s no right choice for me. But there is a choice that’s right for the people who count on me to be there when they need me.”
That was just like Amandine. She’d show up when I was dying, but she couldn’t stay to see me live.
Iron has a physical presence for the fae. Give it enough time and it starts making a sound, like fingernails on a blackboard inside your head. If you leave a fae prisoner in an iron cell for a few days, you won’t have to worry about them anymore; the iron prevents them from using magic to escape and breaks them at the same time.
“Wake me when the world ends.” “Your wish is my command,” he said.
As often as men slam me into things, you’d think I’d get laid more.
Toby, please stop punching Etienne in the head. It’s not helping.” “He started it,” I said. “That’s nice. It’s finished now.”
