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I loved Lou. I knew that. Felt it in my bones. I also couldn’t stand the sight of her.
He was the best of us.”
If I closed my eyes, I could pretend a different Lou held me this way. I could pretend this icy touch belonged to another—to
“Frankly, his silence is insulting. He could at least send a bird to shit on our heads or something.”
Hope matters most, I say fiercely. Hope isn’t the sickness. It’s the cure.
She’d once told me it hurt to remember the dead as they were, rather than who we wanted them to be. Memory was a dangerous thing.
Time changes us all, does it not?
I’d killed the Archbishop because I loved Lou. I’d killed innocents because I loved the Archbishop. Because I’d loved my brethren, my family. Every time I’d found a home, I’d fought tooth and nail to keep it.
Nicholina. Get. The. Hell. Out. Of. My. Wife.”
Fucking fabulous. Fucking Reid.
If someone like Ansel had received only neglect, loneliness, and pain for his efforts, for his goodness, what hope could the rest of us have?
In another time, I would’ve screamed and raged at the injustice of it all, at the senselessness, but no amount of anger would change anything now. This was life.
“Death isn’t a happy ending, Ansel. It’s sickness and rot and betrayal. It’s fire and pain and”—my voice cracked—“and never getting to say goodbye.”
“Dreams are never dreams, Mademoiselle Célie. They are our deepest wishes and darkest secrets made true, whispered only under cloak of night. In them, we are free to know ourselves.”
So polite. So fascinating. If I spilled my plate in his lap, would he thank me?
I watched you sacrifice pieces of yourself to protect him.
I would’ve moved the entire castle before I let you die.”
He’d simply . . . loved me—despite everything—and that love had led him to this heinous choice, to forget me, to save me.
“You’ve married a witch”—I didn’t remember—“slept with a witch”—I wished I did—“hidden
“You’re right. He’ll probably love this plan. It’ll give him a chance to act out his martyr fantasies. Hell, he’ll probably want to be lashed to the stake out of self-loathing or shame or—or some sense of misplaced duty.”
“Here’s your first lesson in seduction: honesty is sexy as hell.
Allow yourself to be vulnerable, so he can be vulnerable too. That kind of honesty—that kind of honesty is intimate. It’s raw.”
“He’s fucking infuriating.” “That he is.” “I want to gouge his eyes out.” “I completely agree.” “I might steal his Balisarda and shave his eyebrows with it.” “I wish you would.”
I thought you said honesty was sexy as hell?”
Perhaps you want to worship me instead. Is that it, Chass? Do you want to worship my body like you used to?”
her fucking collarbone.
And those eyes—I could drown in those eyes.
I’d been captivated by her collarbone. Now the whole of her bare legs stretched out before me.
she had no business sounding so innocent. Not when her body burned as sin incarnate.
she seemed fragile as glass. No, not glass. My wife.
You make me feel right. Whole.
he’d chosen me. In all the moments since, he’d chosen to stand near me, to sleep beside me, to listen when I spoke. When he’d offered me the last of his food yesterday,
It felt too good to be true. I held on to it for dear life.
If kissing her would stop another tear from falling, I’d kiss her a thousand times.
I’d kiss away every tear for the rest of her life.
What I felt for Lou was visceral and raw and pure. It would consume me, if I let
“Have I told you today how absolutely and completely attractive I find your ass?”
Reid would cherish her, I knew. He would do everything in his power to ensure her happiness, and she would return his efforts tenfold.
I’d recognized theirs was a love that would change everything. A love that would break the world. A love that would make it new.
