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midnight-blue frosting – the same color as the wings tattooed on Dante’s back.
Jacks gave her a lazy grin and whispered, ‘What are you trying to find, Donatella? Are you searching for some good in me? You’ll never see it, because it doesn’t exist.’
Legend was not walking a fine line with this play, he was crossing it.
the vainglorious bastard was smiling. All white teeth and flawless lips as if he were one the stars worshipped inside the Temple.
horror all that came out was: ‘You should never wear a shirt.’
His grin was devastating.
‘You can’t take apart my dress on these stairs.’ ‘Does that mean I can take it apart somewhere else?’ His low voice oozed dark promises.
Tella wasn’t going to be a coward and pretend she didn’t have choices just because she didn’t like them.
‘Would you prefer it if I hated putting my arms around you?’
‘Do they mean anything or are they just pretty pictures?’ ‘Did you just call them pretty?’ ‘Do you have something against the word?’ ‘Not if you’re using it in reference to me,’
‘I play so many roles the tattoos help me remember who I am.
She’ll possess great power.
Ruins so abandoned not even the insects had stayed.
a person’s beauty was determined by their bones.
After drinking a poisonous glass of wine, her husband forgot every person he’d ever met, except for his wife.’
‘Fate is only an idea, but I think by believing in it we turn it into something more.
people didn’t tattoo tales they no longer cared about onto their body,
Tella pictured the word good withering next to Dante. Good was the word people used to describe how they slept at night and bread fresh out of the fire. But Dante was more like the fire. No one called a fire good. Fires were hot, burning things children were warned not play with.
she was beginning to understand how hearts could be slowly given away, without a person even realizing. How sometimes just a look, or a rare moment of vulnerability like the one Dante had just shared with her, was enough to steal a fraction of a heart.
cautiously, ‘is all this your way of telling me you’re the villain?’ His chuckle was dark. ‘I’m definitely not the hero.’ ‘I already knew that,’ Tella said. ‘It’s my story, so clearly I’m the hero.’
Dante wasn’t trying to seduce her; he was convincing her just how little goodness mattered,
Where others had demanded, Dante asked,
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.
She’d accepted the cards she’d been given and turned them into her fate because it felt like the only way to protect herself
Only the moon lingered, undoubtedly wishing it had lips after witnessing what Tella and Dante had just done.
‘I think I’d like you even if you were the villain.’
I’m not the hero,’ he reminded her. ‘Then perhaps I’m here to save you.’
Dante had seen her crying, he’d seen her bleeding, seen her on the verge of death. A little blood on her mouth wasn’t about to scare him away.
‘I kept coming back to you, not because of Legend, or the game. But because you’re so real and alive and fearless and daring and beautiful and if what’s between us isn’t real, then I don’t know what is.’
‘Every curse has a way to be broken, and a loophole.
Do I look as if I’m in love with you?’ ‘You always look like a monster to me,
she didn’t have to love him to be his true love.
Tella was used to his mercurial looks. They couldn’t hurt her, and neither could his poisonous lips.
‘You called me a monster and even I think that’s cold, Donatella.’
I warned her the cards would only bring trouble, but I should have chosen a different word. Like misery or agony. Paradise merely said she loved trouble. But I believe what she really loved was life.’
But I think Paradise was afraid of love because when she loved, she did it as fiercely as she lived.’
Don’t be like me and settle for the ease of an almost-ending, when you could have the true ending.’
‘Not everyone gets a true ending. There are two types of endings because most people give up at the part of the story where things are the worst, where the situation feels hopeless. But that’s when hope is needed most. Only those who persevere can find their true ending.’
magic, far older than Legend’s or Jacks’s, brushed against the backs of Tella’s hands, tasting her with unseen tongues.
The world was about change. Either all the Fates and Tella’s mother would go free, or Legend would destroy them and become the most powerful human in the world.
They kissed as if the world were ending, lips crashing together as if the heavens were breaking and the ground was crumbling, as if a war raged all around them and this kiss was the only thing mighty enough to stop it. As long as they kissed, only she and Dante existed.
He dark eyes stayed fixed on her as if she were his prize.
He was supposed to break her heart. She wasn’t supposed to break his.
She still wasn’t entirely ready to think of him as Legend. Legends were supposed to be better than the truth. Perfect, idealized dreams and crystalline hopes that were too flawless to exist in reality.
He wasn’t afraid. He was something far worse. He was hopeful that she would choose him.
perhaps love was an otherworldly entity like Death.
Tella had now opened herself up to the possibility of Love, it would not stop coming after her, and it felt far more powerful than Death.
Humans were selfish creatures. The stars had witnessed it again, and again, and again. But tonight, as the stars peered down on the world they saw what seemed to be truly unselfish acts. First, from the young woman. Foolish young woman. She’d seemed promising. Now she was useless. Paper. But it was interesting to watch how her young man responded.
It was a delight to see him in pain. This boy, who never seemed to care about anyone but himself, shook with rage.
Not that they believed he would sacrifice himself for her. Humans were not that selfless. But, of course, he wasn’t fully human.
