Six of Crows (Six of Crows, #1)

by Leigh Bardugo

A friend of mine liked to tell me that women love flowers. He had many flirtations, but he never found a wife. Do you know why? Because women may love flowers, but only one woman loves the scent of gardenias in late summer that remind her of her grandmother’s porch. Only one woman loves apple blossoms in a blue cup. Only one woman loves wild geraniums.

Wylan shifted unhappily in his chair. “Duping innocent people isn’t something to be proud of.” “It is if you do it well.”

He’d heard there were sharks in these waters, but he knew they wouldn’t touch him. He was a monster now, too.

“I don’t want to kill people, not really.” “That’s a solid policy until people want to kill you. And in our line of work that happens a lot.”

“The life you live, the hate you feel—it’s poison. I can drink it no longer.”

There was no part of him that was not broken, that had not healed wrong, and there was no part of him that was not stronger for having been broken.

“They fear you as I once feared you,” he said. “As you once feared me. We are all someone’s monster, Nina.”

“I will have you without armor, Kaz Brekker. Or I will not have you at all.”