House of Ash and Shadow (Gilded City, #1)

by Leia Stone

Ayden, Eden, and even Hayes were making a concerted effort to be nice and include me and I wanted to be their friend. I liked that on my first day of school I already had a group of people to sit with at lunch.

Big fan of Eden and the twin..Hayes seems okay too

‘I can touch you. You won’t be alone, as you will always have me,’ Yanric piped up. ‘I can’t have my first kiss with you, Yanric.’ He shook himself on my shoulder. ‘Of course not. Way to make it weird.’ That made me laugh. The little bird had grown on me.

Yanric is awesome

‘I pooped on his guitar,’ Yanric announced, sailing above us.

I love you Yanric

“Fine! Be that way. But know this, Fallon Brookshire. We don’t have a set destiny. We have choices, and you can choose to be different from Marissa Bane. We make our own destiny, dammit!” She rapped on the door a final time and then I heard her footsteps retreat.

Eden's a good friend and I appreciate her using her father's surname.

‘Let’s get one thing clear. I am loyal to you and you alone, Fallon Bane. If you need my help, I offer it without question. If your heart breaks, my heart breaks too. If someone seeks to harm you, I will harm them no matter who they are or what title they carry. And if you go insane with darkness and become a Nightling, then I too go with you.’ I burst into sobs then, because it was the sweetest thing anyone had ever said to me, and it made me feel so safe. I wasn’t alone. He nestled into the covers beside me and lowered his head on my neck as I stroked his feathers. We lay like that for an hour before both drifting off to sleep.

They deserve eachother <3

“Psst,” the person said, and I looked closer to see the gate was ajar; through the crack I spied Ariyon. He was sitting on the ground with what looked like a bottle of liquor in his hand.

Hiding in the woods to talk to her while he drinks is sort of unbecomming but I get that he's supposed to be the bad boy twin so i'll go with it

Aside from his hair and his entire personality, Ariyon’s laugh was the one different thing from his twin. Ayden’s laugh was lighter, more superficial in a way. He used it often. Ariyon’s was like busting through cobwebs, raspy and deep and barely seen. It gave it a unique quality. Ariyon’s smile, his laugh, his steel-eyed gaze—it was as if there was magic in them and when he used them, they had power over me.

Classic teen love triangle dilemas mixed up with complicated fantasy lore and I'm just so here for it!

I continued my work, stirring and mixing and adding ingredients. I had actually told the cookies I loved them in my head to add that dash of love and felt silly about it but also didn’t want the recipe to be incomplete.

You're a good girl Fallon

I looked up into Ayden’s eyes and saw my own heartbreak mirrored there. He couldn’t touch me like Ariyon could, and any future we had died in this moment.

I saw this coming but I honestly think it could have been a better story if Ayden could touch her she would have been forced to choose between the twins on their own merit rather than being defulted to Ariyon because he's her only real option

I grinned, pleased with how my magic was developing. It had been a month since the incident with Ayden and he was back at school and being sweet. Meanwhile Ariyon and Blair were full-on dating and could be found casually making out around every single corner in this damn school. I tried to act like it didn’t bother me. He never promised to be anything to me, but ever since he gave me that note and cookie from his brother, he had changed. He’d shut me out again. He was never around, always with Blair, or just ignoring me.

He's dating Blair to distract himself because you're with his fricking brother girl...his brother who everyone refers to as the nice twin

I saw you first. What did it mean?

It was pretty depressing to hear only two people clap for you knowing hundreds were present, but I pushed it from my mind, focusing on the positive. I had two friends and that was better than zero.

Her attitude is amazing

I sensed something between them then, a connection, or just their usual playful banter? Eden and Ayden had always seemed like friends but seeing each other dressed up like this, I think it changed something between them because they were lost in the other’s gaze while I just watched without an ounce of jealousy. I searched my heart for any hint of resentfulness or sadness, but it wasn’t there. Why wasn’t it there? Shouldn’t it be? He was my boyfriend, after all. Instead, there was just…a rightness.

This is good, there was this small part of my brain that worried Ayden was really an evil twin and would turn on Fallon and his brother but instead Fallon will hook him up with her best friend so they can live happily ever after and she can be with Ariyon with no guilt

He strode right up to me, letting his gaze run the length of body, and my breath caught in my throat. Reaching over, Ariyon pulled on the pinky finger of my gloved hand and slipped the garment right off. Then he took off the next glove, letting them both fall to the floor, so that my arms were bare. What he did next took my breath away. Reaching up into my hair, he pulled out my clip, letting my long black tresses unfold into curls down my back. I was panting by the time he leaned towards my ear. “I want to give you everything you want,” he said, threading his hands through my hair, and my knees went weak at the declaration.

A little weird for his brother to go fetch him. I would have prefered that he was there organically holding himself back from being with her etc.

“No!” she yelled, but she was helpless against the strength of this force field or whatever it was. It was like I could throw out an invisible shield and move people out of the way or lift them up or put them down.

Super helpful to keep people from touching her if she masters it