Immortal Longings (Flesh and False Gods #1)

by Chloe Gong

Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale Her infinite variety. Other women cloy The appetites they feed, but she makes hungry Where most she satisfies. For vilest things Become themselves in her, that the holy priests Bless her when she is riggish. —Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra

August would recognize her anywhere.

“Please, please, hold your applause,” he declares to the empty apartment. “I cannot handle so much adoration all at once.”

Real

Anton Makusa is picky when it comes to the bodies he occupies, and his narcissism takes first priority.

whole lifetimes can pass in a week.

Half of Calla’s wardrobe is borrowed from Yilas,

There’s something about this that feels too convenient to be true.

You’ve had years to think about your mistakes. About what you could do differently this time.

Anton spends his last half hour of the countdown getting drunk.

“Give me the skinniest, sharpest thing you have.”

I giggled but.. Idk why..

Take the cuts. Take the burns. You will heal, and you will be braver.

Strength is a conscious effort. First, you will be braver, and then you will be stronger.

her cat has attachment issues.

If August were a more patient person, he might wait for the natural tide to take his adopted father instead. But he is not.

“Do you flirt with every person you’re trying to kill?” “Only you,

She’s twenty-three, and each year, everyone younger than her only looks more and more like a child.

Anton Makusa was born the tousled sort of beautiful, tall but always slouching, perfectly set features obstructed by a heavy frown.

Sometimes she feels a thousand years old, like an ancient god who has been sleeping in wait, ready for her moment to come. Her mother called it narcissism,

If anyone saw them from afar, one might even think they were a couple taking a brisk morning stroll. Maybe if couples these days went for matching bloodstains instead of wedding rings.

“I could hear it in your voice. Anton, my hero, I don’t know what I would do without you—

Her voice turns sultry as she settles into the courtesan role, smoothing a hand across his temple. She would be lying if she said it wasn’t for her own amusement too. She’s trying her hardest not to laugh.

“Don’t get cold.” She catches it with her free hand. “When I’m with you?” Calla grins, swinging her jacket on. “Never.”

Otta always made her presence known in person, so of course the photographs that capture her are easily recognizable too.

What’s the point in acting like they’re not constantly suspicious of each other?

“Don’t tell me you’re afraid of cats.”

one learns how to tune out the sounds beyond their four walls,

but it’s soothing to build them, to create something even if it is all to be thrown away in the end.

What are memories if not stories told repeatedly to oneself? Her whole body is the very narrative of her existence.

Anton doesn’t seem to hear her. The idea has grown wings in his head and flown right toward the skies.

though he has no knot to make. If anything, he is watching one unravel before him.

there is nothing nice about the expression. It is bitter and jagged and everything she is.

Evenings spent hiding in various palace rooms, maybe, trying to keep quiet with the guards patrolling the hallways outside. But even that was always tinged with a franticness, with him wondering if Otta was going to get bored and wander off if he wasn’t interesting enough.

You’re the only thing that makes it worth it, promise me we’ll stay together, promise me, promise me— there was nothing he could say except I promise. I promise.

he doesn’t think impossible things can be explained away by blaming what is foreign.

She’s become accustomed to having Anton Makusa around. Isn’t that why it bothers her when she can’t find him at a perilous time? A certain reliance has creeped in. She may not need him nearby, but she wants him nearby.

Anton follows Calla out, his heart thudding against his ribs.

She reminds him of Otta, and not in a good way. She gets under his skin, even more than Otta did, because Otta squirmed and burrowed just to see if she could, but Calla will set her claws deep and then claim that she didn’t mean to. She could have anything in the world if she only tried.

He should know better than to be drawn to her.

he cannot escape, sent a new test in the form of Calla Tuoleimi, the last living princess of Er. She stains his mind in vivid color, bright and burning and dangerous.

He’s always liked dangerous things. He hates that he knows better. That dangerous things are bound to leave a demolished path in their wake. And still, he tries to hold them anyway.

Calla hardly plans in advance. She establishes one concrete end goal, then rams through whatever barriers stand between herself and the result.

“Your poor attempt at intimidation? Do you hope to loom over me like some divine conqueror? You will never be one. The desperate never are.”

Pampi remained human, and humans can always die.

“There are no gods in this world.” He reaches out to close her eyes. “Only kings and tyrants.”

Even at the temple, he had had a way out. It was her refusal to jump that had kept them tethered in that room, surrounded by Crescents. And still, he hadn’t left. Kept committed to their alliance.

But after the way Anton Makusa looked at her, his hand scrunched in her hair and his eyes betraying a whisper of devotion, she can’t bear the thought of killing him.

All this time, was he only awaiting a command from someone else? Had he never been told that his life was something he was allowed to hold on to?

“Do you want to fight me?” She doesn’t. Of course she doesn’t. But when has that ever mattered?

“Did you kiss me just to distract me?” he goes on. “Or because you wanted to?”

Calla has never had the luxury to consider what she wants. It has always been about what needs to be done. Want is dangerous.