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Nikolai knew he was worth at least the same as the noble-born boys in the capital, and he refused to give anyone an excuse to prove otherwise.
This was the sort of book one ought to read in pieces, to properly appreciate and savor each bit. And yet he wanted to devour it whole. Messily and all at once.
But he did not admit to himself, either aloud or even quietly in his own head, that he was interested in the girl for more than just her magic.
She did not acknowledge how he’d made her feel, all tremble and ache inside, for she couldn’t.
The gleam in her eyes was one part gloat and ninety-nine parts mischief.
Though she be but little, she is fierce.’”
And yet, there was something about the other enchanter, about the magic he chose, that drew her to him, as if the bond between them was not an altogether evil thing. It was more like a tenuous thread attempting to reconnect two halves of a whole.
She was the sun, and he was a mere rock, drawn in by her gravity. He needed to be closer, to feel her magic, to touch . . . her. He trembled at the thought. And he took a step in her direction.
“Be careful. . . .” And then she let go. For even she knew there was only so much one could do to protect a winter moth drawn to an icy flame.
And touching Nikolai, even through her gloves and his sleeve, was like being pummeled by a stampede of wild horses. No, wild unicorns. Beautiful, wild unicorns.
He smiled his blush of a smile. If only she could capture it and keep it in a bottle.
He was a poisonous autumn crocus: deadly beautiful with no antidote. She wanted the flower anyway.
For it was too cruel of life to bring him to her now, only to remind her that one of them would soon be taken away.
He felt hot and cold again, found and lost, like he’d felt with her in his arms at the ball.
The walls he’d erected around his heart crumbled a little.
Nikolai wished, for a moment, that he could keep falling, and she could keep catching him. But they couldn’t.
What a wicked twist of fate that Elizabeth might be ripped away from him when he had only now begun to appreciate her.
She was still beautiful, but with her expression as black as her hair, her beauty was of a fiercer kind. An almost frightening kind.
I’ve spent my entire life scrambling to fit in and to change myself, Vika, but where I’ve belonged, and who I needed to be, has been right here the whole time. I love you.”
