House of Flame and Shadow (Crescent City, #3)

by Sarah J. Maas

“When Apollion found my ship, he was ripe with power. He’d just consumed Sirius. I don’t think he intended it, but when his magic … touched me, something transferred over.”

“And fortunately, I’ve had fifteen thousand years to master them. To let them become part of me, take on a life of their own, as the books did.”

“For a world to emerge where these books will be truly safe at last.”

Like the fading light of day—of dusk.

soft white T-shirt topped with a navy athletic jacket.

It’s navy

Midgard has always had magic, as all nature has inherent magic. The Asteri just did not deign to recognize it.”

She reached a hand into the interior pocket of her black athletic jacket.

And then it’s black??

“In my own research over the millennia, I learned that dragon fire is one of the few things that can make a Prince of Hel balk.”

A male now seated before them, on a throne seemingly crafted from a single set of antlers. The beast who’d grown them had to have been colossal, the likes of which didn’t exist elsewhere on Midgard. Did stags that big roam around here? The thought was … not comforting.

Do they also come from TOG bloodline?

And the Ocean Queen said islands literally withered into the sea in despair when the Asteri arrived.”

But they selected Avallen just for the Fae. To be their personal, eternal stronghold.”

“I come from a long line of powerful stag shifters. We have rituals. Secret ones, old ones.

Apollion lifted a hand. Pure, sizzling lightning danced around it, arcing out to meet Hunt’s. “Welcome, son,” said the Prince of the Pit.

“The black crowns were collars in Hel,” Thanatos answered darkly.

Collars??? Valg

“Because the Princes of Hel cannot be contained by the black crowns. The Asteri learned that—it was their downfall. As you were made by Hel’s princes, it should not be able to hold you.”

Hunt had a feeling that the darkness in the pit before them was breathing.

Reminds me of the library center / Bryaxis

Since the Starsword and the knife were both Made by Theia at the same moment, their bond has always linked them. They have long sought to be reunited, as they were in their moment of their Making.”

the blades’ pull toward each other was stronger than your untrained will.”

“There are ley lines across the whole of the universe. And the planets—like Midgard, like Hel, like the home world of the Fae—atop those lines are joined by time and space and the Void itself. It thins the veils separating us. The Asteri have long chosen worlds that are on the ley lines for that exact purpose.

“Helena planted that prophecy, seeded it in Fae lore.

the sword and knife are needed to destroy the Asteri. She knew that if a scion came along who could claim all three pieces of magic, they’d need the sword and knife to make that power count

“The black salt only repels the Asteri; the mists repel everyone else. But certain people, with certain gifts, can access the power of thin places—on any world. World-walkers.” Aidas gestured gracefully to Bryce. “You are one of them. So were Helena and Theia.

“I am darkness itself,” Apollion said softly. “True darkness. The kind that exists in the bowels of a black hole.”

“The three of us,” Aidas amended. “Our four other brothers are currently engaged in other conflicts, helping other worlds.”

thanks to his compulsory years in the peregrini army.

Ice and snow appeared in his palm. They did not melt against his skin. He could fucking summon snow

“Hello, Nesta.”

Ithan could only assume it was meant to represent Urd. No other temples ever depicted the goddess, no one even dared—most people claimed that fate was impossible to portray in any one form. But it seemed that the dead, unlike the living, had a vision of her. And those symbols running from the bowl onto her skin … they were like tattoos.

“No.” The Under-King’s milky eyes settled on Ithan. “I was birthed by the Void, but my people …” He smiled cruelly at Ithan. “They were not unknown to your own ancestors, wolf. I crept through when they charged so blindly into Midgard. This place is much better suited to my needs than the caves and barrows I was confined to.”

“And she,” the Under-King went on, gesturing to that unusual depiction of Urd towering above him, “was not a goddess, but a force that governed worlds. A cauldron of life, brimming with the language of creation. Urd, they call her here—a bastardized version of her true name. Wyrd, we called her in that old world.”

It stared down this creature, this thing from his people’s home world, and it knew the Under-King for what he truly was. Enemy, his blood sang, and it spoke of caves beneath hills, of plundered graves and musty darkness. Enemy.

Starlight flickered around her head in a shadow of that crown of stars.

seven hills of the Eternal City

the droplets of Polaris’s blood rising upward like a red rain as Bryce shoved her blades deeper and deeper—

Wait i thought the asteri had black blood?!

“Brannon.” She stifled a sob around the boy’s full name,

Lidia said to Ruhn, hair floating up in a golden halo,

It confirmed what Lidia had long guessed. Why she had named Brannon after the oldest legends from her family’s bloodline: of a Fae King from another world, fire in his veins, who had created stags with the power of flame to be his sacred guards.

Lidia hadn’t mentioned any of that as Danika had filled her in on how they’d become shifters, and the Asteri’s experimentation with them on Midgard, which had eventually erased their pointed ears.

“The language inked on your back—it is our language. From our home world. I can teach you how to wield it. Any world might be open to you, Bryce Quinlan. Name the world, and it shall be yours.”

walked over to the fireplace to pretend to read some sort of old-looking manuscript.