Robin > Books: buddy-read‎ (348)

“They twist things to suit themselves. They dress up and pretend. They wear Blood Jewels but don’t understand what it means to be Blood. They talk of honoring the Darkness, but it’s a lie. They honor nothing but their own ambitions. The Blood were created to be the caretakers of the Realms. That’s why we were given our power. That’s why we come from, yet are apart from, the people in every Territory. The perversion of what we are can’t go on. The day is coming when the debt will be called in, and the Blood will have to answer for what they’ve become.”

“So she can’t move furniture around a room, but she can destroy an entire continent.”
“She’ll never do that. It’s not in her temperament.”
“How can you be sure? How will you control her?”
They were back to that. He took his cape back and settled it over his shoulders.
“I’m not going to control her, Cassandra. She’s Witch. No male has the right to control Witch.”
Cassandra studied him. “Then what are you going to do?”
Saetan picked up his cane. “Love her. That will have to be enough.”

“Daemon had written: "What do you do when she asks a question no man would give a child an answer to?"
Saetan had replied: "Hope you're obliging enough to answer it for me. However, if you're backed into a corner, refer her to me. I've become accustomed to being shocked.”

There’s a kind of literary tradition that after a prolonged absence, the hero and heroine fall romantically into each other’s arms and indulge in three pages of athletic sex – gruelling for both reader and participants alike. You might want to brace yourself for disappointment. Firstly, because Leon hadn’t been well for some time which meant . . . well, you know. And secondly because Markham jammed a gun in the back of my neck and tried to shoot me. Some days I don’t know why I bother to get out of bed.

” You will want to be careful what you leave within beaking range. Hillary, they tell me, is particularly fond of hard-boiled eggs.’
‘Isn’t that like some form of cannibalism for them?’
She nodded. ‘Eating one’s young.’
‘Eating one’s young is a hugely underestimated weapon in the parental arsenal.’

‘Let us all think carefully. Who here has the least value? Who has annoyed me the most?’ He turned to face me. ‘Who is in need of a much-deserved lesson?’
‘No idea,’ I said.
‘Oh, I think you do.’
‘Well, yes, I do, but I thought it would be rude to point out it’s you. Not in front of your men. Although it would be good to stop you talking before everyone dies of boredom.’

But I’m no hero. I’m more of a last resort, a scorched-earth policy. I’m the person you hire when the heroes have already come home in body bags.

“You try what?” I snort. “Oh, so now you’re trying to help me? What you said before, that was meant to help me?”
Ma’ii stares at me flatly. “I know you do not believe it, but I am always trying to help you, Magdalena.”
“You are always trying to help yourself.”
“Can I not do both at once?”
“No, you cannot do both at once.”

They say the hataałii worked hand in hand with the construction crews, and for every brick that was laid, a song was sung. Every lath, a blessing given. And the Wall took on a life of its own. When the workmen came back the next morning, it was already fifty feet high. In the east it grew as white shell. In the south, turquoise. The west, pearlescent curves of abalone, and the north, the blackest jet. It was beautiful. It was ours. And we were safe. Safe from the outside world, at least. But sometimes the worst monsters are the ones within.

“Lay one hand on her,” Mari said, “and I break every bone from the tip of your index finger to your shoulder.”
He stared down at her, momentarily caught off guard. He tried to smirk, but he couldn’t quite hide the nervous edge in his eyes. “That’s a big boast for a little girl.”
“Not a boast. A statement of fact. So that when you force me to cripple you, you’ll understand exactly what’s happening to you and why. I wouldn’t want there to be any confusion.”

“We fooled him once,” Hedy said, her voice soft. “And that was luck. My master isn’t coming to save us, Renata. We’re all alone.”
Chains rattled as Renata turned. She took gentle hold of Hedy’s chin, lifting her face. “Fine, then,” Renata told her. “We’ll just have to save ourselves.”

“I have not failed, because the contract is still open. I am still murdering him. I am in the process of murdering him as we speak. I am murdering him right now, with my mind.”

“And that is the difference between a church and a god. How could I be angry at a god for something a church did?

“I do not need,” she said, “to cry. My father is dying. My brother is a worthless glutton who’s leading this church, my church, down the road to ruin. And if I’d been born with a cock between my legs, I’d have the power to stop him, instead of being the useless daughter just waiting to be married off to some foreign aristocrat.”
“Livia, I—”
Livia held up her hand. “Have you ever considered, for even a moment, the list of things I’m not allowed to do because some bitter old men say so? I can’t lead a mass, can’t earn the greens of a priest, let alone claim my birthright. My entire life, from the cradle to the grave, is dictated by ‘traditions’ and rules that you aren’t subject to. My power was taken away from me the moment I was born a woman. So no, you do not get to give me permission to cry!”

“Right, you’re a good guy now.” Will’s voice was sarcastic. “You think you get to walk away? You’ve had enough and now everyone should leave you alone?”
“Yes! I walked out of that life! I’m not asking for anything from anyone, I just want to be left alone! It’s been ten years, isn’t that long enough? Isn’t there some point where you stop being the person you used to be and it stops being right to blame them for what they’ve done?”

“I love you, Nell, sugar. I love you with no demands. Nothing held back. I love you to the exclusion of all others. I love you now, when you are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. I loved you when you were a tree. I will love you when you grow gray haired and your leaves are brittle and brown. I want to make love to you. When you happen to be ready. When you know you love me that exact same way.”

“That music the water makes,” she said. “Isn’t it the mos

“That music the water makes,” she said. “Isn’t it the most wonderful sound ever?”
“The most wonderful sound ever is the lamentations of my enemies, screaming my name toward the heavens with ragged, dying voices.”

“Is my father why I’m such a mess of anger, bravado, and temper? Is the fact that they call him a coward the reason I walk around with my sword in hand, screaming that I’ll make a pile of everyone’s skulls, then stand on that to help me behead the people who were too tall for me to reach?”
Kimmalyn smiled fondly.
“Bless my stars?” I asked her.
“Every single one of them, Spensa. Every single bouncing star.”

"You have large twin destructor emitters on each wing, along with a light-lance turret underneath. That’s as much firepower as our larger ships. You’re a warship.”
“Clearly not,” M-Bot said. “I’m here to categorize fungi. Didn’t you listen to my last orders? I am not supposed to get into fights.”
“Then why do you have guns?”
“For shooting large and dangerous beasts who might be threatening my fungus specimens,” M-Bot said. “Obviously.”

╰⊰✿ What Diamond Fire Did Great ✿⊱╮

Leon let out a long- suffering sigh. “Are you sure that I’ll be enough? These places can get pretty rough. You walk into a cake shop and then some gunslinger tells you, ‘You ain’t from around here, partner,’ and the next thing you know, you’re in the middle of the street, your horse is dead, the bad guy’s got your girl by her hair, and you’re down to one bullet.”
“What is going on in your head?”
“It’s a dark, lawless place, Catalina. So dark.”

But when I saw Alessandro, I wanted to snap my wings open as far as they could go and dazzle him with everything I had, so he would be mine forever. I liked him so much, I had to let him go.

╰⊰✿ What Might Not Work For You in Diamond Fire ✿⊱╮

╰⊰✿Read This!!!✿⊱╮

“I plan for the worst,’ Silver said. ‘That way, at least I’m dressed for the occasion.”

“I plan for the worst,’ Silver said. ‘That way, at least I’m dressed for the occasion.”

“We have to report this."
Kai sighed deeply in relief. "I was afraid you were going to say that we had to investigate it ourselves."
"Don't be ridiculous," Irene said briskly. "We may collect fiction, but we are not required to imitate the stupider parts of it.”

“She was a Librarian, and the deepest, most fundamental part of her life involved a love of books. Right now, she wanted nothing more than to shut the rest of the world out and have nothing to worry about except the next page of whatever she was reading,”

There was an odd beauty in his isolation and his sadness, like that of a forlorn prince ensorcelled by a wicked enchantress, or a traveler lost forever in a world far from home.

August stopped rolling the apple, closed the book, forced himself to sit still, even though a still body was a busy mind—something to do with the potential and kinetic energy, if he had to guess; all he knew was that he was a body in search of motion.

As someone who had come quite suddenly into being, like the end of a magic trick, he feared the tenuous nature of his existence, feared that at any moment he might simply cease to be again.

Maybe it was the pills, smoothing her edges. Maybe . . . but there was still something about Freddie. Something . . . disarming, infectious, familiar. In an auditorium full of stares, his was the gaze she felt. In a classroom full of students learning lies, he scribbled the truth in the margins. In a school that clung to the illusion of safety, he didn’t shy from talk of violence. He didn’t belong there, the way she didn’t belong there, and that shared strangeness made her feel like she knew him.

“It hurts,” he whispered.
“What does?” asked Kate.
“Being. Not being. Giving in. Holding out. No matter what I do, it hurts.”
Kate tipped her head back against the tub. “That’s life, August,” she said. “You wanted to feel alive, right? It doesn’t matter if you’re monster or human. Living hurts.”

“No, you need to sit down before you fall down,” Ian interrupted. “Stay here. I’ll sort this myself.”
Outrage had me sputtering. “I can kill ’em all!”
“Of course.” Was he stifling a laugh? “You’re beauty, you’re grace, you’ll shoot them in the face.” I smiled. “That’s pretty.”

“Even if we both survive, I won't enforce my claim on you," I said desperately. "In fact, the first thing I'll do is drop you back at that bordello in Poland and order you a new carnival orgy, promise!" Then I threw up, spraying a stream of crimson all over him as I lost my fight against the nausea.
"See?" I managed when I finished puking. Vow sealed with a blood oath."
He looked down at himself in disgust. "This is everything I knew marriage would be.”

Spade stared at me as if I fascinated him. “I’ve never seen someone shagged into a state of witlessness before.”
“Then I pity your wife,” Ian snapped before I could give my own rude rejoinder. “Up your bedroom game, Charles, before Denise finds someone who will. More importantly”—his fangs came out as he snarled the rest—“the next person who insults her will get their mouth shoved up their own arse.”

Since he hadn’t given his name, Penny anointed him with increasingly ridiculous titles. First he was merely the Bookshop Rake, but as the weeks wore on, he made a rapid ascent up the rungs of the peerage. Sir Read. Lord Literature. The Duke of Hatchard’s.

In the end, Alex had only herself to blame. All the clues were there. His dreadful taste in books. His charming grin that made promises no man could intend to keep. And those eyes . . . They held some kind of potent, brain- addling sorcery, and he went about jostling young women in bookshops without the decency to keep them hidden beneath a wide- brimmed hat.

Daisy took a step in retreat. “Don’t draw too near. She has consumption.”
“Consumption? I’m sorry to hear it. But I’ve no doubt you’ll nurse her to a swift recovery.”
The girl shook her head gravely. “She’ll be dead by tomorrow morning.”
“Surely she won’t—”
“Oh, she will,” Rosamund said dryly, speaking from the window seat. “Best to have a few words prepared.”

“Only cowards are so afraid of a scrap of cloth,” she said, clear enough to carry to the stands. There was a shimmer in her eyes: anger, not tears. “We may not agree with the Archivist; we may want to see him gone and better Scholars take his place. But we still stand for knowledge. You stand for nothing.”

“Stop thinking like a lovestruck idiot; she’s a weapon. She can build us a channel to communicate with your brother. Let her do the job she needs to do, all right?”
He turned toward her. Hands out of his pockets, body set as if he expected her to attack. He saw her shift to match it. It was probably unconscious. Probably. “I’m not willing to break her to serve the rest of us. We do that, we’re no better than the Archivist.”
Glain’s expression didn’t shift. It was calm and set and confident. “Flavia chose to pick up the knife.”
“Flavia stood on the corpses of everyone who died first trying to protect her. So think about that a moment.” His tone had gone so hard, cold, and final that he scarcely believed it was his.
“Flavia was a child,” Glain said. “And you don’t have a moral right to treat Morgan as one!”

“Are you asking to escort me, like some girl you’re romancing? Jess. Don’t waste your time. I’m extremely unavailable.”
“Tragic,” he shot back. “Be serious. You know I’ve got—”
“Morgan,” she finished for him, when he stopped. “Yes. You do enjoy a challenge. Now she’s a princess locked in a tower. That makes you want her even more, doesn’t it? I think you’ve read too many tales of knighthood, Jess.”

We have been told that paper in a binding, ink on a page, is worth more than the life of any man, woman, or child. We have been pressed into the service of this false idol we call Knowledge for far too long; we have forgotten how to be free of it, how to think for ourselves and believe we, in ourselves, are worth the breath we take, the land we walk.

“I told you, leave it alone. This isn’t some adventure; it’s a bloody war. They pay me to be a tactician, and I can tell you this: we can’t win. We don’t have the numbers or the weapons or the knowledge. We’re defeated before we start, and, yes, I will look after the one I love before all else, and devil take the rest of you if it comes to that!”

Cool Potentially Evil Library Society + Fierce Competition + A Bunch of Kids With Secrets + An Instructor With Questionable Loyalties = A DAMN GOOD TIME

“You have ink in your blood, boy, and no help for it. Books will never be just a business to you.”

The rot extends deeper, into every branch and root, for the Library now seeks not to enlighten, but to enslave. We are only the most visible casualties of a silent war, and as they lock collars on our necks and tell us it is for our protection, we know that worse will come.

he began to realize how much he had to learn about how different the world was from the theory of it.

Do we always spend hundreds of years planning and scheming and kidding ourselves we have everything under control, and then the Tide comes back and we discover how badly we’ve been deluded?

“Would you believe I’m motivated by idle curiosity?”
“Not for a moment. What do you intend to get out of this, Lukys, other than my death?”
“Very well,” the older man replied after a moment. “I want to be God.”
“I thought we’d decided immortals who want to be God were a really bad idea, Lukys.”
“Did we?”
Cayal nodded. “The name Kentravyon leaps to mind.”
“Ah, but there’s a difference between me and that lunatic,” Lukys said, sitting on the edge of the railing. “I want to be God, Kentravyon thought he was God.”

"You could be better with something else,” I say, lowering my voice.
She surprises me by laughing, and not a flirty, breathless laugh but an at me laugh. “Seriously? Do these lines usually work for you?”
“Honestly?” I give a small smile. “Yeah.”
“Well ”— she sips her coffee—“ let me know when I’m supposed to fake the swoon.”

“By all means,” she purrs in a dangerous voice that generally means die. “What’s mine is yours.”
“Really?” he asks, turning toward her, his gaze dropping to her cleavage.
“Go ahead. Try it,” she says. “I’ve been in a castration sort of mood lately.”

“You take my suggestion to seduce the lady agent?”
I smile. Lady agent. I wonder how Lara would feel about the moniker. “I tried. Didn’t take. Trying to clear my name the old-fashioned way, though,” I respond.
“Hiring someone to take out the witness?”