Apprentice to the Villain (Assistant to the Villain, #2)

by Hannah Nicole Maehrer

She was afraid, but she knew now: fear usually meant you were standing on the edge of something new, something self-altering, something potentially good. Fear was not something she would shy away from ever again.

“I would never make the mistake of underestimating a woman like you. It would be a fatal one.”

“Sometimes family isn’t a thing we are born into but a choice we make. Sometimes”—Evie smiled—“the people who love you most in your life are the ones who choose you.”

Losing someone didn’t mean the end; it merely meant the beginning of the life you’d lead without them, the beginning of letting in the people you’d gain in their stead.

It had occurred to her many times over that “impossible” was merely a word people used to describe limitations they wished for you to adhere to, so you wouldn’t upset the balance.

“That is what happens when people are bored of mundane existences. They have to pick at extraordinary ones.”

Love shriveled and disappeared differently, sometimes slowly, sometimes quickly, but she realized now that it was the most brutal, the most painful, when it was abandoned.

Emotions didn’t always know right or nuance; they just knew to be hurt when someone caused pain.

it wasn’t thoughtless bravery that won the fiercest battles—it was welcoming the fear that lived inside your heart, in your mind, and harnessing it to carry your feet forward, knowing it couldn’t control you.