Emily Wilde’s Map of the Otherlands (Emily Wilde, #2)

by Heather Fawcett

It is in part, I suppose, that the thought of marrying anyone makes me wish to retreat to the nearest library and hide myself among the stacks; marriage has always struck me as a pointless business, at best a distraction from my work and at worst a very large distraction from my work coupled with a lifetime of tedious social obligations.

Watching Wendell with a sword is like watching a bird leap from a branch—there is something thoughtless about it, innate. One has the sense that he is less himself without a sword, that wielding it returns him to the element most natural to him.

“Can’t you sense what enchantments are stored in the stones?” I demanded. “No!” I threw my hands up in frustration. “Then why do you keep on breaking them?” “Because you told me to, you lunatic!”

“Seven years this December,” I replied promptly. “That is, if you assume we became friends at the moment of our acquaintance, as most people tend to. Myself, I find it a more dubious transition to pinpoint.”

in order to be surprised, I could not have known already that you are capable of anything.