A Gathering of Shadows (Shades of Magic, #2)

by V.E. Schwab

Delilah Bard had a way of finding trouble.

Or perhaps, Kill him, since Lila was pretty sure they hadn’t figured out yet that she was a girl. And she had no intention of informing them. She might have been a long way from home, but some things didn’t change, and she’d rather be a man, even if that meant a dead one.

Lila barely said a word (Kell would have been thrilled).

“And you greatly underestimate my capacity for suffering.”

“Strength and weakness are tangled things,” the Aven Essen had said. “They look so much alike, we often confuse them, the way we confuse magic and power.”

But belonging meant caring, and caring was a dangerous thing. At best, it complicated everything. At worst, it got people killed.

“I do not know why you two are circling each other like stars. It is not my cosmic dance. But I do know that you come asking after one another, when only a few strides and a handful of stairs divide you.” “It’s complicated,” said Lila. “As esta narash,” she murmured to herself, and Lila now knew enough to know what she said. All things are.

Lila had never really bought into fate, but like most people who disavowed religion, she could summon a measure of belief when it was necessary.

A person chose their path. Or they made a new one.

Delilah Bard had never been in a fight that didn’t matter.