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Heartsick and ashen with rage, Libby snarled at the house’s faceless walls. “Don’t tell me I didn’t bleed for you!”
Libby could feel her secrets being robbed from her then.
“Honestly, Rhodes? Congratulations,” Nico said with a laugh. “So, you’re finally willing to burn this world down, but only to prove that you personally matter—”
because everything in your life has always been about proving something to me.”
“Because the real banger of a truth,” said Nico, his voice dropping just above a whisper, “is that if you were actually a good person, you would have just stayed lost.”
“Because you burned the world down once and walked away unscathed, and you’re dumb enough to think that means something.”
Standing over her was herself, her hands dripping with blood.
Then Libby calmly woke to the dim light of the reading room, understanding two things: that this had been the ritual, and she had failed.
And in case it bears repeating. You don’t have to feel bad that you left a situation that was killing you.
you’re going to be completely shocked because no matter how powerful you are, you can’t actually DO anything.
stop.” “Engrave it on my headstone,” Libby muttered. “Let’s just, I don’t know, stop.” “I’m putting ‘brb’ on my headstone,” Nico said, then snapped his fingers. “Gideon, you’re in charge of that.” “I’m aware.” Gideon sounded wry, too close.
The idea that he would see everything and not try to intervene. Tristan felt unmoored by it. Destabilized.
“How have you not blocked his number? Just throw the whole phone away.”
“And? Is she of any use to us?” “Hm? Of course not, Mori, she’s being investigated for fraud. And treason, by the looks of it.”
Reina, however, had a plan. She had many plans. She didn’t run around lighting people on fire without calculating the risk of what went up in flames.
“They really think they’re the good guys,” she murmured. “Everyone does, Mori,” Callum muttered beside her. “Everyone does.”
Unlike Callum, however, Parisa was motivated, competent, and angry.
Not a chance that Parisa’s endgame was anything short of personal tyranny.
Nico she would forgive when the time was right; someday, when thinking of the year without him hurt her less.
At what point did Atlas Blakely relinquish his soul in exchange for cosmic omnipotence?
Do you think Atlas Blakely is a bad person?
How many lives has Atlas destroyed in pursuit of power?
Is there such a thing as too much power? Or is power just a body count after all?
don’t want to give up. I just want—” To live my life, she thought to say, but even she could hear how empty that sounded.
A plan. She always, always had a plan.
Internally, Parisa sighed. Men and their greatness—their callings. Why was any of it her burden?
I was good. Hadn’t she said that once?
The most dangerous person in the room wasn’t just whoever could still see where they were going—it was the person who couldn’t be stopped.
You, Tristan. I’m the one that’s a sitting duck for a dozen assassins and a bloodthirsty library. You literally have so much time.
I’m a sad adult boy with daddy problems
Nobody likes me, Caine. That’s kind of my thing?
It’s like having a cat that startles you while you’re reading.” “You said you wanted to be startled.” “Not like that,
“Being with Rhodes has made you disgustingly zen.”
I’ve been mocking you for having possibly the dumbest revenge plot I’ve ever personally witnessed.”
(It was chilly for such an endeavor, but what was life if not a series of irresponsible choices in pursuit of shrieking joy?)
“Just what does he think you’re going to disrupt? The mouse pad industry?” “I think more along the lines of the economy,” Nico guessed, “which is admittedly a figment of everyone’s imagination.”
She was like an elephant, but specifically for the ways that he had personally wronged her.
“Stop trying to stay small, Rhodes,”
“If I’m going to set myself on fire again, I won’t be doing it just to prove something to you.”
Like she had outgrown him when all he had done was try to shrink down for her. All those months treading carefully, being kind, being considerate. Apparently that meant nothing to her, so fine. So be it, he’d thought. Time for a different tactic now.
“I,” Nico replied, “am mostly here to piss everyone off. Cheers,”
“Just … like you’ve forgotten something.” “Something?” “Like you’ve forgotten I’m not your enemy.” Ah, there it was. “Like you’ve forgotten I’m supposed to be your ally. I’m on your team.”
The help he never would have requested from anyone, which she’d offered without a single string, just because she’d known him. Because she’d known.
“It’s like you’ve completely forgotten that I already gave you my word.”
“I feel like we’re in a pretentious film about tortured geniuses.” “Yes.” “But actually we’re just babies with expensive glassware.”
“I did think about you, you know.” He took another swallow of whatever Tristan picked out for them. “I think the technical verbiage is I missed you.”
It’s like without you, I’m just push, you know? Just push with no pull, but then you were gone and I just fell over.”
“Sorry, I don’t know what I’m saying, I guess I just wanted to tell you that it wasn’t nothing to me, you know? I know I make it seem like everything is nothing to me, but it’s not.”
“I don’t actually want to never see you again, as the poets say,” she mocked.
“Without you,” she said with feigned solemnity, “I would simply … fall over.”
