More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
Read between
October 28, 2024 - March 13, 2025
The few people she allowed to be close to her were tired of hearing it, her therapist had to have been exhausted by the tale, and what no one realized was that Raegan was sick of it herself. But grief is a story, and it is one that demands to be told.
“Oh yes, Rae-Rae, I can’t believe I haven’t told you before! It’s a spell of sorts. Magic. It’s a way of greeting the darkness, of saying hello. It goes like this: ‘I greet you, Mrenin, as I walk within your shadow and your stead.’ ”
mrenin - noun. 1) meaning a monarch or leader, but usually, a king.
The last two pages were just illustrations: a large set of ornately wrought, towering gates and a circle with complicated symbols around it.
all she found were spells for making a straying boyfriend come back and a large group effort to hex the government that she briefly admired.
smell of her favorite soap: spicy peppercorn and bergamot with just a hint of oakmoss.
smell of woodsmoke in her nose, though it was gone the moment she
brenhines pennaf,”
woodsmoke and black pepper.
woodsmoke and rain and black pepper was strong and unbearably gorgeous.
“A large contingency of my sworn enemy appeared. Battle magic was exchanged. Old elemental magic reared its head. An unstable pocket realm flared into existence. Naturally, I came to investigate.”
“Is this not beauty?” the King asked, his tone genuine, at least as far as she could tell. “Old roots were cut to the bone here, and yet they reemerge, defiant. Is there anything more beautiful than defiance, than survival? It is the most ancient song and perhaps the sweetest.”
warm and spicy, orange flower and vanilla and clove.
The air carried the scent of thunderstorms and cold vanilla and Italian lilac—chilly and fresh and floral.
honeyed with Fate and heavy with Sorrow. She felt Time slip out of tune,
large iron skeleton key. Age had blackened its patina.
luna moth housed in a small apothecary
“It is your choice. Know that I will follow you to the ends of the Earth,” the King murmured, head tilted as his eyes searched hers. “But we have done this a thousand times, and I never like the ending.”
“WHEN THE WORLD IS SPLIT IN TWO, THE MAEVE OF THIRTEEN FROM O’ER THE HILL—NOT FROM BENEATH—WILL MEND WHAT IS SHATTERED. SHE WILL COMPLETE THE WORK OF THE ONE WHO CAME BEFORE. SHE WILL WALK THE IN-BETWEEN BESIDE THE EXILED KING. SHE WILL TURN BACK THE TIMEKEEPER.”
“AND SO THE GATES SHALL FALL.”
smoke, shimmering chestnut and a deep, bitter vanilla.
“You people take your manners so seriously one moment,” Raegan grumbled, falling in step beside him, “and then threaten to kill people the next. It’s absurd.”
“Is everything alright?” the King asked, his voice coming from close to her ear, like he had leaned toward her to speak. In response, Raegan let out a derisive laugh. “Obviously not,” she replied, biting down on the inside of her cheek. “But it’s all dumb mortal stuff. I doubt you’d care.”
Black pepper and autumn leaves filled her senses, banishing the alley’s scent of damp rot.
She paused, wondering what bras were best for an entire quest. Her tits hurt just going down the fucking stairs. “I would love to punch you in the face right now.” She didn’t dare sneak a glance at him, though she didn’t think he had moved.
The King no longer stood at the doorway; instead, he had stepped into her room without making a sound. His gaze connected with a framed art print on her wall, one she’d thrifted a number of years ago. A maiden with Pre-Raphaelite waves of red hair leaned over a small balcony, offering her token to a dark-haired knight astride a powerful black destrier. As
His regal exterior and metal exoskeleton materialized a few seconds too late, and for the briefest of moments, Raegan saw past it all. And beneath, there was only pain. Pain so bottomless and suffering so endless that the color of his eyes no longer seemed like an ocean or a storm but instead, the grayed-out hue of misery itself.
“If you dare to harm her, I will slit your belly open and invite the Cŵn Annwn to feast upon your entrails.”
the last of his kind, a destroyer of worlds. Pitch-black shadows knitted themselves into armor over the King’s body, obscuring his clothing entirely.
Why is this turninv me on so mjcj
“Did you stab him?” the King wanted to know.
“Yes,” Raegan replied, holding up her soiled knife with all the glee of a kindergartener at show-and-tell.
“Beautiful,” the King said, only just louder than a murmur, and Raegan had no idea if he was speaking about her assault on the Protectorate man or . . . her.
But this is a wild place. And wild places are still mine.”
“Are you fucking insane?” she hissed at him. The King looked at her and nodded, almost gleefully. Then he pulled her into his arms and leapt.
For a moment, she worried about how the King would fare with his size trying to navigate the narrow, winding rows of shelves. Then she remembered he was a big boy, more than a thousand years old in fact, and plunged into the maze of towering bookcases.
I am yours until they come.
For most, including the Fey, death is the final door. But not for you. Death cannot seem to hold you down. It can barely get its hands around you for more than a moment or two.”
“I have to hope you will not poison everything this time, too.”
“And more so,” he continued, crossing his arms, “I have to hope I will not allow you to. I am a better king when I do not know your touch, when my flesh does not crave yours.”
but now she could smell him, the damp stone and black pepper and swirling woodsmoke.
“Who was it?” Raegan hissed. “At least tell me her name.”
“Baba Yaga.”
It was just like Layla had said when they’d broken up. Raegan was too hard to love. Even for the person who had done so for centuries, until he just couldn’t take it any longer.
amber, spiced wine and honey.
“So then beg.”
But then she realized creating such a stunning space just for the sake of joy and pleasure was, in a lot of ways, an enormous and glorious “fuck you.”
“You and I were both flowers plucked by greedy hands,” Blodeuwedd said, her words fervent, eyes holding Raegan’s. “They thought they might contain us in pretty vases or breed us for more blooms. But the plucking turned us into something else, didn’t it? Something with wings and talons. Do not forget that.”
“It is excruciating,” he said in a low voice, “to watch you.”
“To salvation, then.”
“Little one,” Fate said, though Her tone belied no kindness, “I do not expect a creature such as yourself to understand the grander workings, but you must have faith in the forces larger than you. This path is yours to walk. Any suffering is the result of your own failures.”
Oooooh shes a saucy bitch
