Siege and Storm (Grisha Verse, #2)

by Leigh Bardugo

You two have a bad habit of acting like fools and calling it heroic.”

“You two make it so easy. I prick him, you bleed.”

I’d considered the possibility that Sturmhond was greedy or stupid, but it hadn’t occurred to me that he might actually be a patriot.

“You know, for two people with a love eternal, you’re awfully insecure,”

I was reminded that, while Mal and Nikolai had their differences, Mal and Sturmhond had been on the way to becoming friends.

She wasn’t just an old woman. She was a woman without hope, and I’d helped to take it from her.

“You come back to train with Botkin. I hit big girl same as little girl.” “That’s very egalitarian of you,” I said, and hurried Tamar out of the stables before Botkin decided to show me just how fair-minded he could be.

“Why won’t you leave me alone?” I whispered one night as he hovered behind me while I tried to work at my desk. Long minutes passed. I didn’t think he would answer. I even had time to hope he might have gone, until I felt his hand on my shoulder. “Then I’d be alone too,” he said, and he stayed the whole night through, till the lamps burned down to nothing. I got used to seeing him waiting for me at the end of corridors, or sitting at the edge of my bed when I fell asleep at night. When he didn’t appear, I sometimes found myself looking for him or wondering why he hadn’t come, and that frightened me most of all.

Not until you’re thinking of me instead of trying to forget him.”