More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
I was good at escaping people, not manipulating them. This was new ground.
Desmond wasn’t good, no matter how much he wanted to be, and better than his family just wasn’t enough. Every day he helped keep us here, he hurt me.
Desmond was still his father’s son, though. Whenever I tried to walk him to the door, he’d politely but firmly send me away so I couldn’t see him put in his code. “It would destroy my mother,” he said when I finally mentioned it. Taking direct action against his father would be complicated, I got that, but why not give us the chance to rescue ourselves? “My family’s name, our reputation, our company . . . I can’t be the one to destroy that.” Because a name means more than a life. Than all our lives.
Other people got to look at a birthday and say, “Yay! One year older!” We met our birthdays with “Fuck. One year less.”
“To Zara,” she said quietly, “because when she dies, Felicity Farrington will finally rest in peace.”
You allowed this to happen, Desmond, actively allowed it, so yes, you are the one who hurt her.
How could a child be worth less than a name? How could all our lives be worth less than a reputation?
And still, in the face of this twelve-year-old girl, he was deluding himself.
none of them use their original names. It’s still the names from the Garden on their tongues, on their minds, and he can see the parents cringe every time.
“Thank you, Samira Grantaire. Thank you for telling us the truth. Thank you for taking care of those girls. Thank you for being so incredibly brave.”