A Restless Truth (The Last Binding, #2)

by Freya Marske

Her eyes were a pleasant grey, and they sparkled.

So Robin’s visions had been entirely correct on that score.

Can’t believe ur still doubting him 😤

There was a girl whose first adventure into obscenity had definitely not been mere hours earlier. Maud mouthed the word to herself, trying to make it comfortable, like doing determined circuits of the house in a pair of overstiff new boots. Fuck. Her teeth caught in her lower lip, satisfyingly, at the start of it.

But her mind was a train hurtling down tracks without her consent, insisting that she consider Miss Debenham’s words and attempt to put images to them.

the sort of perverted voyeur she clearly was.

No magician could turn back time. History and death were absolutes unconquered by magic.

Maud wondered at his choosing that particular book to needle Hawthorn. A preference for other men could be a dangerous accusation both to make and to receive. Was there some sort of signal? She’d never asked Robin how he knew, with Edwin.

Maud ur not gonna believe this but it was actually a very similar situation

The purple booklet was entitled In the Dark Duke’s Dungeon. By a Roman. A few paragraphs into that one Maud’s voice thinned into nothing and she had to put it down; she couldn’t stop thinking about Robin and Edwin, which was frankly horrifying.

😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

She was filled with a great deal of sympathy for the young man in the Dark Duke’s dungeon, even if he had brought his fate upon himself by sneaking into a mansion owned by someone called the Dark Duke—

“Women can be murderers,” said Maud. Mrs. Sinclair would have been proud of such a bluestocking proclamation.

Maud had a moment of hysterical kinship with Edwin Courcey, who would approve of her experimental approach, and then banished him entirely from her mind.

A pause, in which the table warily weighed the question of whether Lord Hawthorn was familiar with the concept of humour.

“Have you ever played mahjong, Miss Cutler? He says it requires a similar sort of mind.”

Real!!!

Maud pulled back and watched her, and had never felt hungrier or more accomplished in her life.

Maud managed not to blurt out What about your monthlies?

After that Flora had a habit of giving us silver objects as gifts. It was a kind of joke.

Whatever question you’re thinking of asking here, the answer is probably yes.

But Gerald had never married before Flora, and spent months travelling to dusty corners of Europe with one of his lifelong friends: a bachelor who studied fossils and old rocks. And he and Flora never had children.

Fellas,

It was easier to let go with an ocean between us. Easier to wear my sunflowers, and to think of her surrounded by her wonderful gardens, and be content that she existed at all.

🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺

An ache had lodged itself in her heart: a shrapnel piece of all the histories of women who’d been important to one another, stretching back through time.

burnt orange

🤘

He’d barely spoken at meals except to be sardonic and off-putting, and altogether the kind of man who would squelch an invitation to a séance beneath the heel of his shoe.

“What trust, Beth?” hissed Seraphina Vaughn, sudden as the strike of an asp. “You didn’t trust me with a piece of the thing.”

Imagine being in a club of four people and you find three magical items!!!

Which was a generous twisting of the word fine and also showed a touching assumption of what Hawthorn’s priorities would be.

“That depends on how much our Mr. Ross likes you,” she said, apologetic. “But having watched you two bargain over pornography, I’d say … quite a lot.”

Tehehehe

Nerve-racking events made Violet want to nap.

So true bestie

I’ve read most of it by now.”

Maud, when did you have time to read THAT much pornography??? I bet you weren’t even taking in all the words 😤

the dry, comforting voice of her inner Edwin.

She’d have flung herself at him, too, but Edwin was fussier about when and how he was touched.

I shan’t say it

She’d learned to say fuck, and to perform the verb; and to have it performed upon her, thoroughly,