The Library at Hellebore

by Cassandra Khaw

She was a corpse that hadn’t caught up to the fact that her heart had been dug out and eaten, dripping like a fruit. In her face, a kind of obstinate hope somehow.

We sanded the dark down to a manageable threat; everyone still knew to be cautious when out walking at night, but they were no longer afraid of ghosts, just one another.

Her smile should have reduced me to worshipful cinders; it should have made me want to beg forgiveness for being such a hateful little gremlin.

Here’s what they don’t tell you about little boy lucifers and girls who won’t stay dead: being needed is all any of us really wanted.

The love enshrined in his gaze was a holy thing and that holiness was what made it dangerous: worse wars had been waged by men with less faith than this one, who stood there looking like he’d bring the world down for this girl.

Some breeds ran and some breeds fought and then some took to gutting themselves for their wolves, because if you were going to get eaten, you might as well choose how.

“Because what is holier than giving yourself up to something better than you?”

When you have had your every freedom pared from you, you learn to hoard the manner and time and method of your death: it becomes the only thing that is really yours.

I understood morality and survival couldn’t always exist in the same room,