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October 22 - October 28, 2025
Get out. Now. As soon as you can. They never need you as much as you need them.
He smirked at her, and oh. She could often pretend that she and Kier were nothing more than the most devoted of friends, but sometimes the ache in her chest was difficult to ignore.
Get it
He never used too much of her, no matter what she said, and that was the truth—however much he needed was just as much as she was willing to give.
“She stabbed me,” he said.
lol bruh
How nice it would be, Grey thought, to lie next to him and die. For all of this to be over.
My love is yours, as that which beats within my heart is yours, and that which powers the fabric of the world is yours through mine own hand. Take from me, that I may be thine. Binding ritual recovered from Locke, author unknown, date unknown
More personally: I am so sorry, your majesty. I know what they meant to you.
“When Locke fell,” Kier said, “they found the sister of the High Lady in Nestria and drowned her and her three boys in the bay in an attempt to restore the Isle. They dismembered the bodies to see if their blood or flesh would resurrect it. Killed the servants, slaughtered the entire household.”
Jesus
“What will we do,” Kier said, “if they discover that you are Maryse of Locke?”
I adore how he knows and just wants to protect her
“It wouldn’t matter to me,” he said, “if you were.” She threw an arm over her face to hide her wince. It was, quite possibly, the worst thing he could’ve said. She wanted him to care. She could’ve fallen on her knees right then and there and begged him to care.
If I have to wait this entire novel for them to kiss I will throw myself off a cliff
“You cannot put yourself at risk for my sake. I cannot live without you. Okay?” “And I won’t live without you,” she said, like it was simple.
Please never fight
He grabbed her hand from his chest, knotted their fingers together. “I promise on your true name and your taken, Gremaryse Pellatisa Carnelion Masidic Locke, sworn Seward, Grey Flynn, that I will not die on you.” He pronounced every syllable carefully, breathed directly into her ear.
This tension might actually put me in a coma
“It is believed, due to recent discoveries,” Kier said shortly, “that the letter from Severin was a forgery.” He sounded like that, Grey thought grimly, because they knew it was.
Hmm I feel like he’s alive personally
Just as Scaelas was sending his own ships to its aid, there was an explosion, and when the smoke cleared, the Isle was gone.
I think he did it but I just can’t prove it lol
Two rooms or not, she doubted he was going to let them split up: they were going to squeeze six adults into one bed and she just fucking knew it.
lol that’s a new twist to there’s only one bed trope
“You are a vision, even with blood clots in your hair. But I don’t know if all would share my depraved tastes.”
“Sorry,” Sela said, very quiet, “but what does that mean?” Meanly, Ola said, “When a mommy well and a daddy mage love each other very much—”
Being so close to the sea has me feeling tense. I don’t think Kier has noticed, thank the gods. I don’t want him to worry about me with everything else going on. Letter from Hand Captain Grey Flynn to Imarta Flynn, undated Grey has been having nightmares again. They don’t wake her, but her fear keeps me up at night. Letter from Captain Kiernan Seward to Imarta Flynn, 14 years AD
😭😭😭😭 HER FEAR KEEPS ME UP AT NIGHT
no wells have been born since the Isle’s destruction.
… what about Sela unless it was like that close
“Then how were you born a well, if you were born after Locke?” “Cleoc was pregnant with me when Locke disappeared,” Sela said,
!!! Okay chill thanks
“I wouldn’t worry about me bringing anyone else to our bed,” he said. He caught her hand, pressing a kiss to the back of her fingers.
OMGGGG KISS AND GET MARRIED YOU FUCKERS
She leaned forward before she could lose herself, already feeling the tugging in her middle. She pressed a hand to Kier’s cheek to steady herself, then pushed to her toes and kissed him, once, her mouth to his in a move that was almost chaste. It was the only goodbye she could manage. She broke away—and one of his hands was at the small of her back, pulling her hard against him. His hand found her hair, his fingers spearing through, thumb sweeping across her temple. Kier kissed her, properly kissed her as he never had before, and her heart ached with everything she would never have.
Oh okay 😭😭
“And Severin? If you’re with her? If you are able to save her?” A muscle in Severin’s jaw tensed. “I know what to do.”
:(
Severin moved so quickly that Maryse missed it. One moment he was standing still with the girl at his arm; the next, his dagger was through her heart, and she was falling to her knees before him, shock clear on his face.
Bro
Eyes shut, his hands gripped in hers, they detonated Locke and everything with it.
Fuck man
“Grey, beloved, you absolute fool—if that was the worst of you, then you remain a saint among us.” He shook his head wonderingly. “And I have been trying to make you see me as more than your mage for six years now.”
!!!!!
“I adore you,” he said, all in a rush. “No—no. Listen. I… I’m in love with you. I’ve been in love with you for years, maybe forever. Sometimes it’s all I can think about, and I can’t breathe because it’s so heavy on my chest that I… I might be holding it alone, the only thing about you I can’t be certain of. It’s agony, Grey, the not knowing.”
Oh
My
God
FINALLY
“Grey, if I don’t spend the rest of my life washing gore out of your hair, then it’s not a life worth living.”
IN THE SMALL HOURS of the morning, Grey was roughly awoken by something coarse and wet being pressed to her face.
He’s totally evil isn’t he
“I didn’t want you to find me.” Silence stretched over the room. Torrin staggered back as though she’d struck him. “I…”
😭 I’m sorry for thinking you were evil dude
“Kier is now a Locke himself,
Uh oh
If the Isle was ever set upon, if all hope was lost, there was a choice: the line could continue if all others died to save one. If they gave their lives, both their power and their magic, the one with the best chance of saving the line would survive.”
“When he died,” Torrin said, “I did not think I would make it. That first day, when the smoke hung heavy, I was certain— Well. We had not tethered in almost two decades, not since he was married and bound to your mother. But somehow, still, I knew.”
oh
once again I apologize dude
“If I do something reckless,” Grey asked, “will you cover me?” Eron sighed.
He did not move. He did not breathe. Her heart sank inside her like a stone when she realized that he hadn’t survived it. That was the unfamiliarity. The uncanniness. His face was lifeless, all spark of what made Kier Kier gone, lost to the sea and the cliffs and the air. Grey reached within herself for a tether that had snapped, torn from the root.
If Kier dies I’m suing
She was older now than Severin ever got to be.
“It required a sacrifice to save the Isle,” she said slowly. Grey remembered what Scaelas had told her. That they all died, so she could live. “And it required a sacrifice to bring it back,” she said through numb lips.
“Are we home?” he murmured in her ear, his voice a raspy whisper. She squeezed her eyes shut. “Yes,” she said, bittersweet.
“I’m not explaining it right. Anyone else’s magic is watered down. Tavern beer when the bills are catching up. But you’re a shot of liquor. And here it’s…”
Then let us be at war.
Preach
That was when she saw him, in the shadows of the doorway. He had one hand on the door still, frozen, halfway through pushing it open. “Leonie,” Kier said. His voice was quiet, but the intensity of it made Grey’s blood run cold.
Well shit
“Why must you always sacrifice yourself, and call that love?”
“What is love, without freedom?” she murmured against his skin. He leaned close to kiss her shoulder, then to whisper in her ear. “What is life, without you?”
Commander Reggin perished protecting the harbor.”
:(
