More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
Read between
January 10 - January 30, 2025
“If you’ve done something to Tella, I swear—” “Relax, Crimson—” “It’s Scarlett.” “Same difference.
He was turned toward his nightstand washing his face, or maybe he was kissing his reflection in the mirror.
People tossed around the word sorry far too easily, as if it were worth even less than the promise of a copper.
Tella would destroy the world before she allowed anything to happen to her sister.
Siblings were supposed to support each other, not tear each other down.
Tella was the sister who would destroy the world if anything happened to Scarlett, but Scarlett’s world would be destroyed if anything happened to Tella.
Aiko gave her a thin smile. ‘You have more mettle than your sister.’ ‘Scarlett and I each have different strengths. Now tell me what the object was.’
Tella claimed she didn’t want love – she liked to say love trapped and controlled and ripped hearts apart. But the truth was she also knew love healed and held people together, and deep down she wanted it more than anything.
Scarlett’s hazel eyes were already turning glassy; she had always been more sensitive than her sister. ‘She broke my crown.’ ‘A true queen’s power isn’t in her crown, my little love. It’s here.’ Her mother placed a hand over her heart.
‘I would actually say your greatest treasure is sitting across from you. There is nothing quite so precious as the love of a sister.’
Occasionally, there are minutes that get extra seconds. Moments so precious the universe stretches to make additional room for them, and this was one of them. People don’t get pauses like these very often. Some people never receive them at all.
Julian might have started dressing like a gentleman, but he was still behaving like a scoundrel.
I’ve made countless mistakes, but you and your sister are the only things I’ve made that have brought something better into this world.’
But Scarlett’s love reminded her that while some things never healed, other things grew stronger.
‘But I don’t want to feel differently. I want to feel love in its every form. I used to be so scared of it, but now I think love is another type of magic. It makes everything brighter, it makes people who have it stronger, it breaks rules that aren’t supposed to exist, it’s infinitely valuable. I can’t imagine my life without it. And if you felt any love in your heart, you would understand.’
‘Love is messy. It’s not easily controlled. But that’s what makes it so powerful. It’s unbridled passion. It’s caring about someone else’s life more than you care about your own.
She looked the way Love might have looked if Love looked in a mirror, infectiously happy and radiantly beautiful.
‘I know you’re afraid of love, I know it’s hurt you in the past and you see it as a weapon. You think love is a disease, but you’ve become the disease. Your fear of love is destroying you and everyone you touch. And it doesn’t make you powerful, it makes the world around you tragic.’
But now his eyes were brilliant as stars once again, full of bits of gold that glittered in the night. He was gazing at her the way he had in the painting on his wall, as if he never wanted to leave her, as if he adored her, as if he wanted to be her hero after all.
