Shadow and Bone Trilogy: Shadow and Bone, Siege and Storm, Ruin and Rising

by Leigh Bardugo

I knew with pure and piercing certainty that I would have waited for him forever.

He was cocky and brash, and always used ten words when two would do,

“All I ask is that you stay long enough to let me explain. If you don’t like what you hear, you’re free to go.” “Just like that?” I scoffed. “Trust me.” “Every time you say ‘trust me,’ I trust you a little less,”

Phenomenal response lol

David bunched up his shoulders and said, “I know metal.” “What does that have to do with anything?” Genya cried. David furrowed his brow. “I … I don’t understand half of what goes on around me. I don’t get jokes or sunsets or poetry, but I know metal.” His fingers flexed unconsciously as if he were physically grasping for words. “Beauty was your armor. Fragile stuff, all show. But what’s inside you? That’s steel. It’s brave and unbreakable. And it doesn’t need fixing.” He drew in a deep breath then awkwardly stepped forward. He took her face in his hands and kissed her. Genya went rigid. I thought she’d push him away. But then she threw her arms around him and kissed him back. Emphatically.

lovely

Then, despite all my better judgment, I asked the question I’d wanted to ask for nearly a year. “You and Mal, back in Kribirsk—” “It happened.” I knew that and I knew there had been plenty of others before her, but it still stung. Zoya glanced at me, her long black lashes sparkling with rain. “But never since,” she said grudgingly, “and it hasn’t been for lack of trying. If a man can say no to me, that’s something.” I rolled my eyes. Zoya poked me in the arm with one long finger. “He hasn’t been with anyone, you idiot. Do you know what the girls back at the White Cathedral called him? Beznako.” A lost cause. “It’s funny,” Zoya said contemplatively. “I understand why the Darkling and Nikolai want your power. But Mal looks at you like you’re … well, like you’re me.” “No he doesn’t,” said Tolya. “He watches her the way Harshaw watches fire. Like he’ll never have enough of her. Like he’s trying to capture what he can before she’s gone.” Zoya and I gaped at him. Then she scowled. “You know, if you turned a bit of that poetry on me, I might consider giving you a chance.” “Who says I want one?” “I want one!” called Harshaw. Zoya blew a damp curl from her forehead. “Oncat has a better chance than you.” Harshaw held the little tabby above him. “Why, Oncat,” he said. “You rogue.”

Well done, if sad, still funny too and a bit poetic

But Ana Kuya used to tell me that hope was tricky like water. Somehow it always found a way in.

“You asked me once why I didn’t let you die in the chapel, why I let Mal go to you. Maybe there was a reason you both lived. Maybe this is it.” “It was a supposed Saint who started all of this, Tolya.” “And a Saint will end it.” He slid from the hull to the ground and looked up at me. “I know you don’t believe as Tamar and I do,” he said, “but no matter how this ends, I’m glad our faith brought us to you.”