The Knight and the Moth (The Stonewater Kingdom, #1)

by Rachel Gillig

Only life did not go back to normal. I knew the second I woke the next morning that something wasn’t right. The Diviners’ cottage felt colder, quieter. And Four, vibrant, determined Four— Was gone.

“Did that man just call me foul, Bartholomew?” “He mistook you for a bird.” “An even greater slander!”

“It sounds awful when I say it out loud.” “True things often do.”

“Don’t laugh.” The echoes of his chuckle still lingered in the air. “I’ve never laughed in my life.”

Tyler lol

The only thing that matters in this world is the effort you exact, Diviner.

“I think I would like to stop promising myself away, or else there will be nothing left of me to give, King Castor.”

My body had always been strong—and ever just enough. But whatever my soul was made of was frail. Like birch bark, like gossamer, like the wings of a moth.

People who love you for your usefulness don’t love you at all.”

hate it!” the gargoyle wailed against the rain. “How do the flowers bear this incessant abuse?”

“The tor was the only home I ever knew. But I have stepped down from its height and seen the world with my own eyes. You can’t take something like that back. Even if I returned to the cathedral, nothing can be as it was.” His fangs pressed over his teeth as he smiled. “You can never really go home.”

“I told you, Bartholomew. I know everything I know exceedingly well.”

“Losing something is painful. Sometimes, finding what we’ve lost is just as agonizing.”