A Torch Against the Night (An Ember in the Ashes, #2)

by Sabaa Tahir

Failure doesn’t define you. It’s what you do after you fail that determines whether you are a leader or a waste of perfectly good air.”

It takes only a split second for life to go horribly wrong. To fix the mess, I need a thousand things to go right. The distance from one bit of luck to the next feels as great as the distance across oceans. But, I decide in this moment, I will bridge that distance, again and again, until I win. I will not fail.

I shiver in the cold night, and he eyes my cloak critically. “We should get you a new one,” he says. “That can’t be warm enough.” “You gave this to me. It’s my lucky cloak. I’m not giving it up—ever.” I pull it closer and catch his eyes as I say it.

Elias tilts his head, and for a second, the longing in his face is written as clearly as if he’d spelled it out in the stars.