_hellcat

“And old enough to know that womenfolk have little enough power of their own. That is why they must have their charms and their tricks. Their books and their ink and blood. Their eyes, their smiles, their hips; their lace and silk, their ribbons and thread …These are your weapons, dearie. You must use them as best you can.”
― Kell Woods, After the Forest

“The sun is high, the day hot, and she lays the dress out in the grass to dry, sinks onto the slope besides it in her shift. They sit, side by side in silence, one a ghost of the other. And she realizes, looking down, that this is all she has.
A dress. A slip. A pair of stolen shoes.
Restless, she takes up a stick and begins to draw absent patterns in the silt along the bank. But every stroke she makes dissolves, the change too quick to be the river's doing. She draws a line, watches it begin to wash away before she even finishes the mark. Tries to write her name, but her hand stills, pinned under the same rock that held her tongue. She carves a deeper line, gouges out the sand, but it makes no difference, soon that groove is gone, too, and an angry sob escapes her throat as she casts the stick away.”
― V.E. Schwab, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

“Here," she says, pressing the pastry box into his hands. "Enjoy the party."
Henry's smile falls. His forehead rucks up like a carpet. "Why don't you come with me?"
And she doesn't know how to say I can't when there is no explaining why, when she was ready to spend all night with him. So she says, "I shouldn't," and he says, "Please," and she knows it is such a terrible idea, that she cannot hold the secret of her curse aloft over so many heads, knows she cannot keep him to herself, that this is all a game of borrowed time.
But this is how you walk to the end of the world.
This is how you live forever.
Here is one day, and here is the next, and you take what you can, savor every stolen second, cling to every moment, until it's gone.
So she says yes.”
― V.E. Schwab, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

“That is the madness of it. Every day is amber, and she is the fly trapped inside. No way to think in days or weeks when she lives in moments. Time begins to lose its meaning - and yet, she has not lost track of time. She cannot seem to misplace it (no matter how she tries) and so Addie knows what month it is, what day, what night, and so she knows it has been a year.
A year since she ran from her own wedding.
A year since she fled from the woods.
A year since she sold her soul for this. For freedom. For time.
A year, and she has spent it leaning the boundaries of this new life.”
― V.E. Schwab, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue