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“Elias,” I whisper, but he brushes a finger against my lips—shh—and tugs a knife free from the half dozen strapped across his chest.
Sexy
the clicking of tunnel tarantulas
The what of WHAT
Three to six months of seizures, I remember. Then death. There is no cure. No antidote.
Oh naur
Then I pull up my hood and slip out of the cave, hoping he’ll still be alive when I return. If I return.
Its giving Katniss leaving Peeta in the cave
Most successful missions are just a series of barely averted disasters.”
“Your emotions make you human,” Elias says. “Even the unpleasant ones have a purpose.
The fire in her, the fervent determination—it speaks to something at my very core, something caged and desperate to be free.
“You shouldn’t be here. You need to get back to the wagons as soon as you can. Were you followed? If—”
Yes
But I can sense the anger simmering beneath the surface. I have not won their respect.
Not sure why you thought slapping the captain would do that
“Most people,” Cain says, “are nothing but glimmers in the great darkness of time. But you, Helene Aquilla, are no swift-burning spark. You are a torch against the night—if you dare to let yourself burn.”
Elias felt like silver, a bolt of adrenaline beneath a cold, clear dawn. Laia was different. She made me think of sorrow and a green-gold sweetness.
“Fast. What about Tas? In Sadhese, it means swift.” “Tas.” He tries the name out. There is the hint of a smile on his face. “Tas.”
Oh he’s going to have a horrible end
It was heady. Intoxicating. And filled with a depth of emotion that I did not expect. Love. I love him. Don’t I?
No you don’t
“Give me your guilt. I’ll hold on to it for you, all right? Because you shouldn’t feel this way.” He pulls back just a bit and tips my face up. “Try to forget the anxiety for a bit.”
Shut up Keenan
Your emotions make you human, Elias said to me weeks ago in the Serran Range. Even the unpleasant ones have a purpose. If you ignore them, they just get louder and angrier.
Exactly he gets her and Keenan doesn’t
But since Keenan took the yoke of leadership from me, I’ve felt weaker. Diminished. As if I grow smaller by the day.
Oh
I miss that girl. That Laia. That version of myself that burned brightest when Elias Veturius was near.
“An . . . escape?” “A cave,” Faris says after a moment.
🎶You’ve ruined everything you stupid bitch🎶
No, bleeding hells, no. All that time, lurking among us. Pretending to care about her. Trying to get in good with Izzi. Acting like a friend when he was really a tool of the Warden.
I KNEW I DIDNT TRUST HIS ASS
Laia and Elias are each other’s countermelodies.
Keenan grimaces. “Laia,” he says. “It might be too late for that. There is nothing stopping her from walking in and taking custody of him.”
You can piss off you demon
The desire to try again to discover my power pulls at me. But Keenan’s warning echoes in my head. Unreliable.
Ugh he doesnt want you to learn
Ten minutes after I begin, I open my eyes. Keenan, waiting calmly, simply shrugs. “I don’t doubt that it works some of the time.” The kindness in his voice only frustrates me.
Does his presence keep her from doing it
The disappearing is at my fingertips—I can feel it. If only I could figure out what’s blocking me. If I could remove that one obstacle, it would change everything.
HIM
He pulls the armlet onto his wrist with slow reverence. A chasm opens up inside me, as if the last bit of my family is gone.
Nooo girl
“My name”—his voice changes as he speaks, his warmth souring, twisting into something foul and grating—“is not Keenan.”
THE ARMLET
“There was no Keenan, Laia of Serra,” the Nightbringer says. “There was only ever me.”
OH
For he cannot simply take back these pieces. Each time he finds one, he must ensure that it is offered freely, in absolute love and trust.
He becomes whomever he transforms into. He creates them—he is them. He feels what a human would feel. Including love.
Sick
I realize that each time I succeeded, Keenan was out of sight and often far away. All that self-doubt I felt when he was around—could he have planted it on purpose, to suppress my power?
Exactlyyy
“Because sane plans never work, girl,” she says. “Only the mad ones do.”
“Welcome to the Waiting Place, the realm of ghosts. I am the Soul Catcher, and I am here to help you cross to the other side.”
NO its not time
The spirits you sent to their deaths were at peace because you mourned them. You bring pain and suffering to those you love. But you do not wish to.
“Shaeva,” I say. “Make me your successor. Bring me back to life, the way the Nightbringer did for you.”
Oh no
A small group of Scholar children, Tas among them, attack the old man.
Love
His friends swarm all over the old man, biting, clawing, bringing him down, taking their revenge on the monster who has abused them since the day they were born. Tas plunges the dagger into the Warden’s throat, flinching from the geyser of blood that erupts.
What a poetic death asshole
It’s about Elias. And”—he takes a deep breath—“about our father.” Our father. Our father. His and Elias’s.
Oh
I do not tell Araj my deepest secret fear: that I do not think Darin will wake up. That I think the blow was too much after all he had already suffered. That I worry my brother is gone forever.
Oh no
You’re the girl who razed Blackcliff and liberated Kauf. Laia of Serra. The ember waiting to burn down the Empire.”
I grab the collar of his shirt and pull him to me, exulting at the feel of his lips against mine, at the rightness of finally giving in to each other.
Elias rises to his feet, joy etched onto his features. My legs don’t seem to work, so he takes my hands to pull me standing. I turn to look into my brother’s eyes. For a long moment, all we can do is take in each other’s faces. “Look at you, little sister,” Darin finally whispers. His smile is the sun rising after the longest, darkest night. “Look at you.”
YAY
