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As Alice grew, the bones in her face clicked into the perfect position, even her skeleton shaped more harmoniously than anybody else’s. She was beautiful. People said Rae was pretty too. Rae wasn’t pretty any more. Even before, Rae knew pretty wasn’t the same.
The Emperor loved like an apocalypse. In real life, people let you go. That was why people longed for the love from stories, love that felt more real than real love.
“You kill people? Serially?” Rahela blinked. As though banishing reason with the blink, she smiled. “Great. We may need a series of people killed.” “My lady!”
A lady’s maid must see if even a fold of a garment or a strand of hair fell out of place. Emer’s eye was trained to notice when things went wrong, and Key of the Cauldron had gone wrong long ago.
The Golden Cobra, who knew every secret, looked very surprised to die.
There was a word for people who closed their eyes and never woke up. Desperation crushed Rae’s voice. “What do you want in exchange for helping me?” Did the dead want anything?
The Golden Cobra stood by the window. Storybook sunlight poured over his gilded ornaments and faraway dark eyes. The boy who wanted a happy ending, and wouldn’t get one. If Rae were a good person she would have asked his real name and told him she would be his friend. She didn’t.
He had to concentrate on cruelty, while often committing small thoughtless acts of kindness. Most people behaved in exactly the opposite way. It was as if he’d once been a better man, and some instinct for kindness remained in the ruin.
Her eyes were level with his mouth. Villains often had cruel mouths. As mouths went, Key’s was a homicide. “If nothing matters,” murmured the Villain of the Cauldron, “all that matters is making it good.”
“‘You are the strongest of all gods. What is there to fear when you are with me?’ asked the child, on the day he died.
Later this very night, Lia would drift down these stairs like a dream of poetry and moonlight made flesh. Across the ballroom, several grown men would shed tears. As Rae descended, several grown men dropped their champagne flutes.
“They insist on being called thugs,” the Cobra said chattily, gesturing for another drink. “I referred to them as bouncers once. They said people don’t bounce back from what they do.
The infamous Marquis of Popenjoy. The Golden Cobra. Eric. A very ordinary man.
