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

by Sabaa Tahir

Most successful missions are just a series of barely averted disasters.”

True suffering lies in the expectation of pain as much as in the pain itself.”

I miss that girl. That Laia. That version of myself that burned brightest when Elias Veturius was near.

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.

“Because sane plans never work, girl,” she says. “Only the mad ones do.”