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Book characters were dangerously attractive in the safest way. You didn’t even know what they looked like, but you knew you liked it.
Reading a book was like meeting someone for the first time. You don’t know if you will love them or hate them enough to learn every detail, or skim the surface never to know their depths.
Villainous characters had epic highs, epic lows, and epic loves. 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.
Is truth stone, or is it water? If enough people walk through a world in their imaginations, a path forms. What’s reality, except something that really affects us? If enough people believe in something, doesn’t it become real?”
Finding a favourite character was discovering a soul made of words that spoke to your own.
A long-ago teacher had told Rae stories were created by villains. Their desires and evil deeds ignited the plot, while the hero only wanted to stop them. At least to begin with, villains were in charge.
“I’m a treacherous, power-hungry bitch, and honestly? It feels amazing. Don’t listen to stories encouraging you to be good, telling you to shine in a filthy world and patiently endure suffering. Screw suffering. It’s too hard to be good. Do the easy thing. Do the evil thing. Grasp whatever you desire in your greedy bloodstained hands.”
An anti-hero was just a villain with good PR. The Emperor might sympathize with Rae. She’d always sympathized with him.
“Have you never considered art grants us the impossible? Art opens a door into someone else’s imagination and lets us walk through. Art is the dreamed-of escape. Art lets the dead speak and the living laugh. Art takes you away from pain when no medicine can save you. Art is the first and last word. Art is the final consolation.”
“What’s a backstory?” “The story behind a story. The shadow that trails behind a character to tell you why they are who they are. The story that makes them feel real. You’re not real with me. I won’t be real with you. We’re villains. We don’t have to know or trust each other. We just use each other for our wicked schemes.”
“Ah. You’re a sociopath. My bad.”
“As a compliment to your excellent craftsmanship.” Key grinned at Strike. “I learned to make weapons watching you. Let’s be friends?” Strike slammed her hammer down on the stall. “You just announced you’d kill me on this noble’s orders!” Key rolled his eyes. “Gosh, I said sorry. I wouldn’t say that to just anyone. She’s paying me, it’s not personal.”
“Can we go back to the palace? I must execute my evil scheme. Plus there will be huge trouble if the royal guards catch me outside the palace walls in my undergarments.”
Nobody lives forever, but a story can. Stories are how I survive.
“Right? I have great hair, a great rack and a wealth of dark sarcasm. I’m basically the perfect woman. Any guy would be lucky.”
“I’m a cold-hearted monster acting in my own best interests. If I keep cockblocking the king, he’ll cut my head off.”
“Stop living in the past. I can help you. The problem is, you can’t trust me. Because I’m evil!”
“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 only thing a villainess should do at a party is make catty remarks and spill red wine on the heroine’s dress! I never get a moment’s peace to make catty remarks.”
“What’s a girl like you doing in a narrative dead end like this?”
“With respect,” Emer said in her flattest voice, “m’lord, m’ladies, you look unbearably stupid.”
Let me be your favourite story. Let me be the greatest story you ever heard.
Who can believe the wicked? The wicked could believe in themselves. The world was hard and cruel. It bore down and broke you into a thousand pieces. When nobody believed in you, when even you couldn’t believe, you must arrange your broken pieces into a terrifying new shape. You could believe in the fantastic recreation of yourself.
If the ending couldn’t be happy, at least it would mean something. She would do something great before she died. She would be an unforgettable part of the story.
