Kindle Notes & Highlights
It was beginning to feel like there was no point. We were treading water in the middle of an endless ocean.
I was grateful, then. Grateful for friends who would leave their worldly comforts because I asked. Grateful for a man who, without words, knew how to help.
“You’re a light in my darkness, spitfire. I don’t want to lose you.” “And you never will.”
My chatter would sound mindless to anyone passing by, especially when Camion was still out cold, but . . . stories could reach me in my darkest recesses. I didn’t have any real way to help him, but words—words had the power to heal when nothing else helped.
Her palace might seem ominous on first impression, but there was an elegant grace about the carefully crafted shadows, the dark ornaments and exquisite details. She embraced the darkness, filled her home with it, and still candles shone bright from almost every surface.
the shadows were dark but they weren’t uninviting.
I hurt him. I hurt him so badly, and all he had ever been to me was kind and supportive. We were a pair and I had shut him out. Now he was doing the same, and the pain was excruciating.
They needed time, and I needed them. If they asked for the world, I would give them every corner.
I nodded, curling into his chest, holding him as tightly as I could manage. The thought that he might not be here, that his father had done such a heinous thing . . . His father almost extinguished one of the brightest lights I knew. “I’m glad you got away from him.” “The leaving wasn’t the hard part,” he admitted. “Finding your way in a world that doesn’t see you like you’ve been told to see yourself. Accepting your worth and hoping others will too. That’s the hardest part.”
“And your scars.” “Yes, those too.” His lips brushed my forehead as he spoke, the words hushed. “Sharing the scars is the hardest part.” “Why?” “Because you have to hope people can see past the ugly, the twisted, and find the good within. Most people don’t care to look.”
“Humans never cease to surprise me. You have the capacity for so much hatred . . . I’m always amazed when you have the strength to choose love.”
she kept the secret to keep you safe. If I had to lie so that someone I loved might live, I would be dishonest for the rest of my life.”
apart. I wanted to run to him and nestle down into it. Enjoy the few moments we had left like these before we had to start running again. Before the terrors lurking around us pressed down on my chest, cut off my air. Happy had become a hard place to find.
I wrapped his hands in mine, the ones still cradling my cheeks, and said, “And I love you. Through this life and all the rest.” His answering kiss shattered the sun into a million particles of starlight.
Love, I was learning, was a funny thing. For this man, I would do anything. For love, for a future, I would save the world.
As the hours ticked by, my thoughts became jumbled. My sanity slipped away like sand through an hourglass, only the quiet sounds of the forest keeping grains in the top.
