Painted Devils (Little Thieves, #2)

by Margaret Owen

“You started a cult?”

Oh, the bastard, I think my heart’s going to explode.

Once again, I find myself ruing the day I gave this smartass tentpole the power to be-twitterpate me.

you don’t believe you’re good enough.” It’s the kind of truth too painful to deny, even worse to own, and all the more terrible to hear someone else say aloud.

shame like a baritone, brassy anger, piped riffs of euphoria, and forlorn strings, straining at the drumbeat seam of fear, a cacophony I can’t shut out.

‘When you want white people to stop arguing with you, make up a proverb.’”

I think I understand, now, why they say you fall in love, because I don’t think I could climb out of this feeling even if I wanted to. What a beautiful trap I’ve built for myself. What a horror, what a delight, to find I’ve been caught.

The insufferable beanstalk.