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“You two. Come out of there this instant.”
Only Ridley is inside the cage.
Ridley waited until he was out of earshot.
Linkubus is never out of earshot.
Abraham held out his hand and flicked his wrist, like he was turning a doorknob. With that one motion, everything changed. Instantly, John grabbed his head like someone had just cracked it open from the inside, and dropped to his knees. Abraham kept his arm in front of him, closing his fist slowly, and John jerked violently, screaming in pain. “What the hell?” Link grabbed John’s arm and yanked him to his feet. John could barely stand. He swayed, trying to regain his balance.
John staggered back, stunned.
John lurched forward and ripped through the darkness. One second he was there. The next, he was gone, sliding away in a ripple of air. He reappeared just inches in front of Abraham and wrapped his hand around the old Incubus’ throat. “I’m going to kill you, you sick son of a bitch.” The tendons in John’s arm tightened, but his grip didn’t. The muscles in his hand were tensing, his fingers obviously trying to close, but they wouldn’t. John grabbed his wrist with his other hand, trying to brace it.
He twitched his hands again, and John rose off the ground further, clutching his own neck with his hands, strangling himself.
John can't rise off the ground further. He didn't leave the ground until now.
Leonard Cohen: “There is a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.”
Sometimes there’s only one choice. Sometimes you just have to jump. Or let go…
I stared at the wall in front of me, trying to picture her face. Then a single thought came to me, and I opened my eyes.
He stared at the wall and then opened his eyes?
The Gates of the Far Keep rose before me, straight and tall.
“They are what they are. Power is neither good nor evil.”
I followed him as the path twisted into an impossibly rocky staircase. We climbed until we reached a narrow cliff that dropped away into what seemed like oblivion. When I tried to look over the edge of the rock, all I could see were clouds and darkness. In front of me were the imposing black Gates.
I am not sure where the gates are. First they rose straight and tall before Ethan. Then Ethan had to climb an imposing rocky staircase onto a narrow cliff, darkness and clouds below, to reach them.
His eyes went pale and glassy, as if he was going into some kind of trance.
He opened one eye, hissing at me.
Xavier's eyes weren't closed.
“It would be too easy if you could walk into the Great Keep. What would be the point of that?”
I stared down at the massive labyrinth, wondering once again what I’d gotten myself into and how I could possibly get myself out. They shouldn’t call death passing on. They should call it leveling up. Because the game only got harder once I lost. And I was more than a little worried it had only just begun.
The only way to get through this whole labyrinth thing, like most other crappy things, was to just get through it.
A maze is just a big puzzle.
I stripped the nearest bush of its leaves, stuffing them in my pockets.
This time I reached out with my left hand, and I used stones instead of leaves.
When did Ethan stuff stones into his pockets? He only grabbed leaves.
No way out but through it.
chest,
stomach
It was identical to the doorway I found in the Caster Tunnels beneath Gatlin.
First, it wasn't a Caster Tunnel but the Underground Railroad under Wate's Landing. Second, there was a door that dumped dirt and led to a field above ground where the Temporis Porta was located. Ethan could see his house.
What if I had it backward? What if the thing that was supposed to happen was the unraveling? What if fixing it was the crime? It was all so clear now. Like everything had been lost in darkness, and then the sun came out. Some moments are like that. But now I knew the truth. I was supposed to fail. The world as we knew it was supposed to end. The Mortals weren’t the point. They were the problem. The Lilum wasn’t supposed to help me, and I wasn’t supposed to jump. She was supposed to condemn me, and I was supposed to give up. Angelus had bet on the wrong team.
So why did Obidias write Ethan's death when it wasn't supposed to happen? Who had him do it? Clearly not Angelus or Abraham if Ethan's death foiled horrible plans. Did the Lilum have Ethan's death written?
the great doors on the far side pushed open, revealing a small figure standing between them.
Angelus took a step toward Xavier, and Xavier took a step back.
Xavier let one hand fall on my shoulder.
How did Xavier get from the doorway to behind/next to Ethan?
I closed my eyes, letting the words find him. I know you were born a Mortal. All those experiments can’t change that. I know your secret. His eyes widened, hate raging across his face.
Ethan can see with his eyes closed?
With that thought, I took a breath.
I took a deep breath.
I took another deep breath.
I guess that’s the thing about a hero’s journey. You might not start out a hero, and you might not even come back that way. But you change, which is the same as everything changing. The journey changes you, whether or not you know it, and whether or not you want it to. I had changed.
The poems are all wrong. It’s a bang, a really big bang. Not a whimper.
There is a point. I don’t know what it is, but everything I’ve had, and everything I’ve lost, and everything I felt—it meant something. Maybe there isn’t a meaning to life. Maybe there’s only a meaning to living. That’s what I’ve learned. That’s what I’m going to be doing from now on. Living. And loving, sappy as it sounds.
Flying or falling, it’s up to us.
there aren’t just two kinds of people in this world, the stupid and the stuck. We only think there are. Don’t waste your time with either—with anything. It’s not worth it.
