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March 21 - April 8, 2025
Our past is a shadow that follows us. For better or worse, it shapes us, and sometimes it controls us.
It was impossible to move forward when part of you was trapped in the past.
there was more to being an artist than forcing paint onto a canvas. It was a way of seeing and listening, and he did both in equal measure.
She had been the sun rising in his mornings and the moon whispering him to sleep at night.
Life wasn’t always about change but sometimes about sameness. And sometimes sameness made you look beneath the surface, look at the bones that held it all together—and the flaws that could be its undoing. Change was a distraction. Sameness demanded reflection.
lies could rub subtly, like a dull blade against fabric until, eventually, threads began popping.
We always thought the truth was too dangerous to know. The doubt is worse.
“Tyghan Trénallis of the Danu Nation. My friends call me Tygh. But you … you may call me Mr. High and Mighty.”
Honor was like glamour, useful only when it served a purpose; otherwise, it just got in the way of who you really were.
Complacency was a sword in your chest, instead of someone else’s.
Why does any despotic ruler deny their vile methods of conquest? They want to project a public image of virtue, but privately they revel in their cruel genius, because absolute power is their ultimate prize.”
“Don’t let the darkness decide who and what you will be.”
You’re always angry. You’ve just become comfortable with it and can’t see it anymore.
She understood the safety of invisibility, the need for distance from the demons that stalk us. Sometimes invisibility was about survival—maybe it always was—and she didn’t know what he was still trying to survive.
“Well, thank you for that little gem of advice, Mr. Know-It-All.” His brows shot up. “What? I’m not Mr. High and Mighty anymore? I feel like I’ve been demoted.”
Knight Commanders didn’t take chances. They eliminated them.
brothers and admissions are boring, and secrets are infinitely more entertaining.”
“Happiness is slippery. I savor the moments I can.”
“I suppose none of us would be worthy of saving if only judged by our worst qualities.”
He wanted Bristol. Only her. In every way, he wanted her. It was as simple and as complicated as that.
She felt a gaze on her back as she walked away, but she didn’t look back. She was done with that, too.
It wouldn’t be the first time she had imagined a bond where there was none—when she imagined something more when there was only something less. Maybe all of it was her own delirium, a need to connect to something more meaningful. Something lasting. Something worth staying for.
Just as magic had a scent, so did mayhem.
She wasn’t sure of anything. Not here in Danu or in Bowskeep or anywhere. But this. This she wanted more than her next breath.
“Do we always have to be what we were? Only what others planned for us?” he had asked. “Do you think it’s possible to start over—to leave the past behind and become something else?”
There is not a creature in all of Elphame that could turn my head from you. I am the scorched earth, and you are my rain.”
Maybe hope was mortal magic.
Fear has a way of making lies seem virtuous,
“Anger is good. Rage is better. It sharpens the claws.”
I don’t need to get rattled. I get even.
Milk transforming into butter seemed like an odd, work-intensive kind of fae magic.
What better way to help her control her nightmares than to let her become one?”
How could you save someone who didn’t want to be saved?
all I wanted to do when I got home was get rid of my glamour. Not that glamour was hard, but it’s kind of like wearing a bra. After a whole day of wearing one, you can’t wait to hang that sucker on a doorknob.”
