Vow of Thieves (Dance of Thieves, #2)

by Mary E. Pearson

Only now did I understand the unbearable weight of secrets. You can never know their true burden until they’ve been lifted from you.

It helped me to see myself better—the impossible choices of a fleeting moment—the regrets we bury deep within us, the things we would do differently if only we could have one more chance, if only we could rewind a moment like a card of yarn and weave it into something else.

Other truths were harder to share—they surfaced in layers—some buried so deep they were only a vague ache we had learned to ignore.

I knew more than ever now that chances could be wrenched from your grasp in an instant, including chances for last words,

Sometimes you need to own one whole day. Maybe that’s what makes you brave enough to face another.”

“I can’t quite shake it. For now, I suppose, it’s a part of who I am. My mind reasons that there’s nothing to be afraid of, but something inside me I can’t control reacts differently.” I heard the confusion in her voice. She turned and looked at me. “I’m not sure how long it will take to convince my heart to stop racing every time I’m confronted with no place to hide. Maybe a lifetime. Are you up for that?”

When you are on the lowest rung of society, you are a comforting reminder to those just a bit above you that life could always be worse, that they are not you.

Maybe I finally understood that history wasn’t just written on walls and in books but made in a thousand daily decisions, and some of them went wrong, some went right, and some decisions just had to be made because time was running out. Waiting for someone else to write your history was no way to live. Sometimes it was only a certain way to die.

Maybe sometimes life and fantasies and family did all go completely wrong. But I had loved and been loved deeply and completely, not once but twice in my life. I would not trade that for all the riches that Montegue had to offer.