Threads That Bind (Threads That Bind, #1)

by Kika Hatzopoulou

That was what put a roof over Io’s head and food on the plate: breaking people’s hearts.

If she loved something, even for a minute, like the fish noodles at the market stall or the teacher who’d smiled at her last week, she held on to that love with tooth and claw. Most threads frayed over time and distance, but never Io’s. Her love was evergreen.

Was it so wrong to have this one sweet thing to cherish, a fate larger than life, a destiny beyond the laws of nature?

In the last dregs of sunlight shifting through the high windows, he looked like a painting, both faded and vibrant, ancient and timeless.

She glanced at him, trying to decipher his frown— he had so many of them, an endless collection of unknowable brow arrangements.

She made a living breaking other people’s hearts—she simply couldn’t refuse when they begged her to put it back together.

“Be better,” Io promised, but what she meant was be over.

Her heart just craved. The softness, the calm, the intimacy. To know what it’s like to be loved.

She would stay in this quiet, soft moment with Edei just a little bit longer, and then she would grow up and face life. She promised.

it showed in the way their bodies had started moving to make room for each other.

For a moment—a silly, breathless moment—she thought he would kiss her.

the entire Ora family was obsessed with one day, with the adulation of more.

If he wanted to help her, she’d let him. If he wanted to be sweet, she’d enjoy it. She had promised herself: no more guilt.

Thais: the first, the deepest, the most important of all of Io’s unrequited love stories.

When angry, Ava tended to shut down completely, in fear she would say something cruel.

Tenderly, she added, “I think the people we love can be cruel. Our love doesn’t absolve them. Nor should it.” “What kind of person are you,” Edei whispered, “if you love someone who is cruel?” It was a question Io had often asked herself. She opened her mouth, closed it. Tried again. “You’re someone who loves. That’s it. That’s the only part that’s yours to give and yours to take.”

This was one of those lessons you had to speak to hear, wasn’t it?

Io wanted to grab his face and smooch him right on the lips. Yes, I’ll protect you, you precious, precious boy.

the sky seemed to crack open like an egg,

Thais’s punishments were always like that: subtle. Shaped as a surrender, dressed as assistance. In truth they were a challenge you would fail, again and again, until you learned to forfeit from the get-go. And that was your lesson: you were a coward.

There is violence in kindness, and kindness in violence, Edei had told Io once.