The Language of Thorns: Midnight Tales and Dangerous Magic

by Leigh Bardugo

“Come now, Ayama. You know how the stories go. Interesting things only happen to pretty girls; you will be home by sunset.”

“It’s true that the boy drank sun from the white ash ladle,” she said. “And, yes, it’s true that he no longer required a herd of cattle for his breakfast or a lake to wash it down. He did indeed marry the doctor’s pretty daughter and worked each day to till his fields. But despite all this, the boy found he was still unhappy. You see, some people are born with a piece of night inside, and that hollow place can never be filled—not with all the good food or sunshine in the world. That emptiness cannot be banished, and so some days we wake with the feeling of the wind blowing through, and we must simply endure it as the boy did.”

This goes to show you that sometimes the unseen is not to be feared and that those meant to love us most are not always the ones who do.”

“Who can say? Bad fates do not always follow those who deserve them.” Even in the dim light, she could see the beast frown. She cleared her throat and smoothed the brim of her hat. “But I believe she was eaten by coyotes.”

Koja was untroubled. “I can bear ugliness,” he said. “I find the one thing I cannot live with is death.”

Koja bowed and made his compliments to Lula’s shiny feathers, the purity of her song, the pleasing way she kept her nest, and on and on, until finally the nightingale stopped him with a shrill chirp. “Next time, you may stop at ‘please.’ If you will only cease your talking, I will gladly go.”

Huh, I get why Alina kept comparing him to Nikolai

Ivan Gostov’s fur shone clean and glossy as it never had in life, and for some reason, this struck Koja as a very sad thing.

“It is always the same trap,” she said gently. “You longed for conversation. The bear craved jokes. The gray wolf missed music. The boar just wanted someone to tell her troubles to. The trap is loneliness, and none of us escapes it. Not even me.”

THERE WAS A TIME WHEN THE woods near Duva ate girls. It’s been many years since any child was taken. But still, on nights like these, when the wind comes cold from Tsibeya, mothers hold their daughters tight and warn them not to stray too far from home. “Be back before dark,” they whisper. “The trees are hungry tonight.”

The river dove through the earth, moving with strength and purpose, leaving caverns and caves and tunnels in its wake. It crossed the length of Ravka, from border to border and back, as the rock tore at its current and the soil drank from its sides. The deeper the river plunged, the weaker it became, but on it went, and when it was at its most frail, little more than a breath of fog in a clump of earth, it felt the coin, small and hard. Whatever face the metal bore had been long worn away by time. The river clutched the coin and hurtled to the surface, gathering its strength, growing dense with mud and rainwater, swelling as it reclaimed each rivulet and tiny stream. It erupted through the millpond, a gout of mist that glittered with rainbows, bouncing the coin this way and that.

“Stop this!” demanded Semyon. But the river did not stop. It twisted and turned, forming a mighty column that churned with reeds and broken rocks, rising high above the forest floor as the onlookers cowered in fear. What did they see in its waters? Some would later say a demon, others the pale and bloated bodies of a hundred drowned men, but most said they saw a woman with arms like breaking waves, with hair like storm-cloud lightning, and breasts of white foam.

She lived in happy solitude, and grew old, and never worried when her beauty faded, for in her reflection she always saw a free woman.

Now, if you have been foolish enough to wander from the path, it is up to you to make your way back to the road. Follow the voices of your worried companions and perhaps this time your feet will lead you past the rusting skeleton of a waterwheel resting in a meadow where it has no right to be. If you are lucky, you will find your friends again. They will pat you on the back and soothe you with their laughter. But as you leave that dark gap in the trees behind, remember that to use a thing is not to own it. And should you ever take a bride, listen closely to her questions. In them you may hear her true name like the thunder of a lost river, like the sighing of the sea.

I made you in my workshop,” he said. “Between your jaws, I placed a child’s finger bone, and then crack.” The nutcracker shook his head. “You are mad.” “And you are made of wood.” The nutcracker splayed his hand over his own chest. “My heart beats. I breathe.” The clocksmith’s grin widened. “A bellows breathes to grow a fire. A clock ticks. Are those things alive?” Maybe, thought the nutcracker. Maybe they’re all alive. “You do not dream,” said the clocksmith. “You do not want. You have no soul. You are a toy.”