Hell Bent (Alex Stern, #2)

by Leigh Bardugo

That was the problem with love. It was hard to unlearn, no matter how harsh the lesson.

Why raise children on the promise of magic? Why create a want in them that can never be satisfied—for revelation, for transformation—and then set them adrift in a bleak, pragmatic world?

That was all there was in this world. No heroes or villains, just the people you’d brave the waves for, and the ones you’d let drown.

“I’m bound to you, Stern. To the woman who brought me out of hell. I will serve you ’til the end of days.”

Alex rose and tossed back his glass of his expensive Armagnac like it was a dollar shot on ladies’ night at Toad’s.

Hell is empty, and all the devils are here. Shakespeare again. One of the strippers back at the King King Club had the quote tattooed above her pubic bone.

“The devil knows your name now, Galaxy Stern.”