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Women hid their children from Marius as he passed. The whole world knew his heart was a monster that must be kept chained.
Blasphemers in revealing gowns were on the loose,
Every day since he left home, the same silent prayer burst from him. Deliver me from the monster I might be. Send help, send salvation. Lost gods, find me.
He hadn’t realized a trap could be made from words instead of net or steel, until he met the wicked marquis.
Only heroes cared about honour. Villains were allowed to be practical.
Promises of loyalty and sacrifice were scams. In the end, everybody saved themselves first.
“Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who can make her enemy crawl?” Once upon a time nobody dared cross her, tease her sister, or disrupt her team. After years of helplessness, the bitch was back.
Ghouls are the unloved dead laid to rest in earth not made safe by an enchanted stone.
She wanted to die fighting.
If your suffering was ugly, stories said you deserved it.
“How many knives do you have on your person?” “I can’t do complicated mathematics and kill ghouls at the same time.” That sounded like too many knives. On the other hand, perhaps the socially appropriate number of knives depended on the situation.
If it was the victim’s fault, nobody had to defend her. Nobody had to fear horror could happen to them. It was more convenient if the victim deserved her fate. So Rae would do everyone a favour, and deserve it.
“Give a man an inch, and he thinks he’s a ruler.
Other women only existed to lose against the heroine.
Lia was good. Rae couldn’t be good. She might not have the experience Octavian believed, but she had experienced horror that sank deeper than bones and stained the soul. Nobody stayed pure.
They had made a bargain. He was her knife in the dark now.
Kings of Eyam wear the crowned mask, for the throne is not theirs to keep.
the god-child will rise again. Our Emperor. He is coming.
First Duke and the great god were one and the same.
“You’re full of surprises. Like a magic trick in the shape of a woman.”
“If nothing matters,” murmured the Villain of the Cauldron, “all that matters is making it good.” He kissed her and Rae saw red. Crimson fire burned away even the dark behind her eyelids. It was a long time since she’d been kissed, and she had never before been kissed on the edge of impossibility with so far to fall.
Apparently Lady Rahela’s body was a harlot in the sheets and a harlot in the streets.
I like you even if you struggle with violent impulses.”
Abyss foundlings swallow a spark as they lie on the edge. We are stained by the smoke, angry as the dead.
What would you be, if you weren’t well rounded but the broken pieces of a character made to be used and tossed aside?
The lonely nightmare child never understood why he was cast off every time.
Which came first, being treated as unworthy or being unworthy? In the end, it didn’t matter. If others believed she was evil, or beautiful, or guilty, they made that true.
But when people don’t care about you, you have to care about yourself. Ambition is wicked, and I want so much. If I want to live that makes me a monster, if I want a man that makes me the harlot of the tower, if I want a throne that makes me an evil queen. Fine. I’ll be a wonderful monster. I trust my own wickedness. I will never believe in someone else again.”
“I don’t care if people are good,” opined Key. “I only care if they’re good to me.
The words tumbled from Rae’s lips. “I need her. Being someone’s sister is the one thing I haven’t failed at. She was always lovely and easy to hurt. I hurt her sometimes, I resented her sometimes, but I planned to fight her enemies my whole life. When we were young, we told each other stories. When I got sick, I was scared to sleep, in case I never woke up. I could only sleep when I told myself if I died, she’d tell her kids stories about me. I wouldn’t be anything but a story then, but that’s better than being nothing at all. Nobody lives forever, but a story can. Stories are how I survive.
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If you cried by yourself, you could pretend you hadn’t. It wasn’t real unless other people knew.
“The king had a murderous viper. He should’ve appreciated his luck.”
Rae still planned to do it. She was sick of being the one less loved. She would rather be a false prophet. She would rather be a villain.
Hope was next door to despair.
“Let’s embrace the evil aesthetic like it’s a lover I’m about to poison. I want lips as red as blood, and eyeliner black as my heart.”
The heroine was a sweet dream. She was a sexy nightmare.
Idiots always enjoy seeing other people being clever.
The most notorious man and the most notorious woman in court were dressed as a set.
“I say sorry for everything in my death scene. While I’m alive, I stay funny and mean. Forgive me not, but if you don’t he will. Ruthless, half-dressed: Kiss me, I’m evil.”
I made bad though sexy choices.”
“Once upon a time came too late. I’d rather die than submit to my fate.
“Call me a snake but I’m not gonna crawl. Meant to repent but not sorry at all. When I meet a bad end put it on my grave: Here lies a sinner, and a total babe.”
A lady must always be desired, but never possessed.
“Is my mother right?” Rahela murmured. “Are men useless? They don’t take out the trash, they don’t rescue the damsels.
“You don’t have to kill if you don’t like it,” Key promised. “I’ll kill them for you.” “Kill who?” Against her hair, she felt his mouth curve. “Everyone.”
“I’m my lady’s vicious creature. I attack at her word.”
“Make better laws or make criminals,” the Cobra snapped back. “The crimes will continue until the justice system improves.”
The Cobra had once cautioned that people who fought twice as hard to get where they were, would be at least twice as good.
A Valerius fell in love like falling off an ice cliff into dark water. Fast enough to snap a neck, love like a sentence of death. The memory of a splintering door and screaming echoed in Marius’s ears. The love of a Valerius was a weight that would drag his beloved under the ice to drown.
The Cobra owned a golden harlots’ den, yet people whispered more about Lady Rahela’s sinful ways. The stain Lord Popenjoy could wash off in a day would mark a woman forever.
