More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
If she saw him, without the context of who he was, she might find him rather handsome.
She couldn’t fix herself anymore, and no one else seemed inclined to even notice she was breaking.
You are all alone, and when the war is over, you will still be alone.
“You know, there’s something about you, Marino, that inspires the most terrible decisions from me. I’ll know better, but then I’ll still…”
The first real smile she’d ever seen from him.
“You’re like a rose in a graveyard,” he said, and his lips twisted into a bitter smile. “I wonder what you could have turned into without the war.”
“Like you, then,” he said, twisting the curl so it wrapped around his fingertip, “trapped in place, but still the same somewhere underneath.”
She’d let herself become wrapped up in her feelings at being compared to a rose and called lovely, at having aspects of herself that no one had ever liked treated as a source of desire.
“Can vivimancy get rid of memories? Make someone forget something so they’d never remember it?”
“What do they want?”
“Is it—actual crawling? Or was there something more constructive Ilva had in mind?”
His hands trembled as he wiped blood off her face.
I’ve always been expendable, remember?”
She recognised the technique. She hadn’t realised he’d paid attention.
“Remind Crowther that if the Eternal Flame wants my continued assistance, they will keep you alive.”
“You are not expendable. You don’t get to push everyone away so that they’ll feel comfortable using you and letting you die.”
“You made me as expendable as I am now. And you didn’t even want me, either.”
“You are not required to make your death convenient. You are allowed to be important to people. The reason I’m
here—the reason I’m doing any of this—is to keep you alive. To keep you safe. That was the deal.” He searched her face. “They didn’t tell you.”
“If I care about you—I won’t be able to use you. And you’re the only hope I have of keeping everyone else alive.”
“Then use me,”
“I don’t want to do that to you. You don’t—deserve that. I can take care of myself.”
“I’m alone, too,” he said.
“I should have known—the moment I looked
into your eyes, I should have known I would never win against you.”
She’d never admitted it to anyone before. That she hated it.
If you die, I will kill every
single one of them.
“You know I would if I could. I’d run with you and never look back.”
You can’t save everyone. You never could.
