More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
To the gremlin girls, I would like to tell you something inspiring, but the truth is, when life closes a door for us, it doesn’t always open a window. The good news is: That’s what bricks are for.
I love this dedication so much.
no two souls see Death and Fortune the same way; yet we all know when we meet them.
This is how you win the game, you know. Show them what they want to see, let them think they can win, let them follow the cards. Keep their eyes where you want them. And never, ever lose sight of the real mark.
Once upon a time, there was a girl as cunning as the fox in winter, as hungry as the wolf at first frost, and cold as the icy wind that kept them at each other’s throats. Her name was not Gisele, nor was it Marthe, nor even Pfennigeist. My name was—is—Vanja. And this is the story of how I got caught.
All in all, he gives the impression of a collection of billiard cues that unionized to solve crimes.
In the world I knew, there were three reasons a person would be wanted: for profit, pleasure, or power. If you could satisfy only one, they used you. Two, they saw you. Three, they served you.
“You’re what happens when an encyclopedia wishes on a star to be a real boy, if that encyclopedia was also an absolute prick.”
human civics primer,
day-old breadstick with a thirst for justice,
All of Vanja's descriptions of Emeric make me giggle
No matter how many cards I lay between myself and the rest of the world, no matter how many lies I tell, how many lives I steal, it will never be enough. I will never escape the ghost in the mirror. I will never escape her, because I am haunted by myself.
“What will I owe you?” I slur. I can hear his confusion in the silence. Finally he says, “Nothing,” the same way Ragne said people help each other, like it ought to be plain as the nose on my face. And the ugliest truth tonight is that I wish I could understand that. I’m not a good person.
Just because you can survive without someone doesn’t mean they’re unwanted.
That’s a complete lie, but I’ll be a stone-cold corpse before I concede a point to a sentient fireplace poker with an undeservedly high opinion of itself.
“Sorry, I don’t speak Sanctimonious Coatrack.”
“This will protect you,” she told her daughter. “Men will be cruel, but they will be less cruel when you are beautiful.”
No. I am not coming out of this night grudgingly liking the smug bastard. I refuse on yet another principle (which is: There’s only room in this town for one smug bastard. That smug bastard is me).
“If ‘not being satisfied by a man’ was grounds for a murder charge, you’d have a lot more suspects,”
I think there are lives that make it easy to be good. Or what most people call good. When you have wealth, status, family, it’s easy to be a saint, it costs you nothing. I can’t say if you’re a good person or not. But the more I know of you, the more I understand that the world keeps making you choose between survival and martyrdom. No one should fault you for wanting to live.”
I want him to stay like this. Close to me, touching my face feather-light, like I am something precious, I am worth taking care. Like I deserve to live without wounds, not despite them. I want this moment trapped in amber, so I can hold it tight when I need it most.
“We were never going to trust each other, right? You’re a walking morality lecture with something to prove, and I’m a scoundrel with an unflinching sense of entitlement to other people’s property.”
I am his puzzle and he is my lock, and it’s an arms race to solve the other first.
But somewhere in all the knots and twists and trapdoors, he turned to an arsonist, leaving his embers in my veins, smoke on my tongue, a fire burning softly in my heart. And it will not die easy.
a reedy law library incarnate,
For all my schemes and façades and artifice, I am not prepared in the slightest for the simple, devastating intimacy of being believed.
I want to think of another puzzle he can’t solve. I want to empty his pockets and get caught in the act. I want the simple peace of being known by him; I want this strange, terrible hope he’s given me, that I could build a life where I choose, instead of living ready to leave everything behind.
I don’t know what’s worse: that he’s slipped into my heart like a knife, or that I like the feel of him there.
a personified pocket ledger.
The princess and the loyal maid died in the woods together a year ago; we are just two girls trying to survive now. And this is it. This is how we take down the wolf: together.
I want him to chase me, because it means I’m more than that. It means for once in my life, I am seen.
He’s nicked an artery, and I am bleeding words.
girls like me become liars, thieves, ghosts, all to survive men like him.
I thought I didn’t believe in bravery. I just didn’t know what it was until I met you. You’ve lived with monsters for thirteen years, and you keep choosing to face them, to fight them, to walk back into their homes. I know bravery is real because I see you choose it every day.
His voice echoes over the Göttermarkt, which looks like someone sucker punched the treasury and it spewed all over the plaza. (Adalbrecht. Adalbrecht was the one doing the punching.)
Once upon a time, there was a girl cold as winter, greedy as a king, lonely as an orphan. She was a liar, a thief, and a wicked maid, who stole from the family that took her in and threw her lady mistress to the wolves. She did what it took to survive, and would not martyr herself for anyone. She was a little thief, and everyone said she died at the gallows. One day, she told her own story, and everything changed. I will keep telling it, this seventh tale, as long as I wish. (Seven is lucky, don’t you know?) I am the daughter of Death and Fortune; I have come down from the mountain with my
...more
