The Briar Book of the Dead

by A.G. Slatter

Liv is my dear friend and such friends will hear the worst selfishness from your mouth and not judge you.

We learn more through sadness than we ever do through happiness. Happiness makes us heedless.’

I’m coming to the idea that forgiveness isn’t about a kindness. It’s a hard thing to do, not easy, not simple. That it’s a price as much as blood is for magic. Forgiveness has a cost.

all they were, and all they could be, should be suppressed in the hunt for a husband – and the only safety in the world was under the hand of one of those – and even after said husband had been acquired, never let him see the truth of you.

They could, at that moment, have stepped into the breach they’d caused in existence, made themselves gods. But they knew, each of them, that power corrupts, and when you feel like a god – or a need to be one – that’s the time to step back from whatever you’re doing.