Look, everyone talks about the unknown like it's some big scary thing, but it's the familiar that's always bothered me. It's heavy, builds up around you like rocks, until it's walls and a ceiling and a cell.

There were a hundred shades between a truth and lie, and she knew them all.

My point, continued Rhy, is for every ten that worship you, one wants to see you burn. Those are simply the odds when it comes to people like you and I.

And Athos had. He’d broken Holland one bone, one day, one order at a time. Until all Holland wanted, more than the ability to save his world, more than the strength to bring the magic back, more than anything, was for it to end.It was cowardice, he knew, but cowardice came so much easier than hope.

Please tell me this is easier to take off than it was to put on.”Calla raised a brow. “You do not think Master Kell knows how?

No,” he muttered, running a hand through his copper hair. “No. No. There are dozens.”“Kell?” she asked, moving to touch his arm.He shook her off. “Dozens of ships, Lila! And you had to climb aboard his.”“I’m sorry,” she shot back, bristling, “I was under the impression that I was free to do as I pleased.”“To be fair,” added Alucard, “I think she was planning to steal it and slit my throat.”“Then why didn’t you?” snarled Kell, spinning on her. “You’re always so eager to slash and stab, why couldn’t you have stabbed him?

Dammit Bard, you're going to set the cat on fire.

Next time I walk away,” she whispered into his skin, “come with me.” She let her gaze drift up to his throat, his jaw, his lips. “When this is all over, when Osaron is gone and we’ve saved the world again, and everyone else gets their happily ever after, come with me.” “Lila,” he said, and there was so much sadness in his voice, she suddenly realized she didn’t want to hear his answer, didn’t want to think of all the ways their story could end, of the chance that none of them would make it out alive, intact. She didn’t want to think beyond this boat, this moment, so she kissed him, deeply, and whatever he was going to say, it died on his lips as they met hers.

«This is why I run.»Because caring was a thing with claws. It sank them in, and didn't let go. Caring hurt more than a knife to the leg, more than a few broken ribs, more than anything that bled or broke and healed again. Caring didn't break you clean. It was a bone that didn't set, a cut that wouldn't close.It was better not to care - Lila tried not to care - but, sometimes, people got in. Like a knife against armor, they found the cracks, slid past the guard, and you didn't know how deep they were buried until they were gone and you were bleeding on the floor. And it wasn't fair.

It is an arrogant man that thinks himself a god.And an arrogant god, thought Tieren, looking to the window, that thinks himself a man.

I know where you sleep, Bard." She smirked. "Then you know I sleep with knives.

Some thought magic came from the mind, others the soul, or the heart, or the will.

People survived by being cautious, but they got ahead by being bold.

My father was a vulture. My mother was a magpie. My oldest brother is a crow. My sister, a sparrow. I have never really been a bird." Lila resisted the urge to say he might have been a peacock. It didn't seem the time.

Everyone thinks I have a death wish, you know? But I don't want to die - dying is easy. No, I want to live, but getting close to death is the only way to feel alive. And once you do, it makes you realize that everything you were actually doing before wasn't actually living. It was just making do. Call me crazy, but I think we do the best living when the stakes are high.

Death comes for us all, Brother. You cannot hide from it forever. We will die one day, you and I." "And that doesn't frighten you?" Rhy shrugged. "Not nearly as much as the idea of wasting a perfectly good life in fear of it.

Well, when you wonder something," said Eli, "doesn't that mean part of you wants to believe in it? I think we want to prove things, in life, more then we want to disprove them. We want to believe.

Kell stared at her, at a loss. Was her bravado a front, or did she truly have so little to lose? But she had a life, and a life was a thing that could always be lost.

Lila!" he said cheerfully. "So you aren't a figment of my brothers imagination after all.

Blood was magic made manifest. There it thrived. And there it poisoned. Kell had seen what happened when power warred with the body, watched it darken in the veins of corrupted men, turning their blood from crimson to black. If red was the color of magic in balance---of harmony between power and humanity---then black was the color of magic without balance, without order, without restraint.

Magic gave so much to Man, and Man so much to Magic, that their edges blurred, and their threads all tangled, and now they can't be pulled apart. They're bound together, you see, life to life. Halves of a whole. If anyone tried to part them, they'd both unravel.

She used to think that if she stole enough, the want would fade, the hunger would go away, but maybe it wasn’t that simple. Maybe it wasn’t a matter of what she didn’t have, of what she wasn’t, but what she was.

Everyone's immortal until they're not.

We still have time," Kell assured him, getting to his feet."How do you know?" asked Hastra. "We can't hear the bells down here, and there are no windows to gauge the light." "Magic," Kell said, and then, when Hastra's eyes widened, he gestured to the hourglass sitting on the table with his other tools. "And that.

Magic was a truly beautiful disease.

Kell tipped his head so that his copper hair tumbled out of his eyes, revealing not only the crisp blue of the left one but the solid black of the right. A black that ran edge to edge, filling white and iris both. There was nothing human about that eye. It was pure magic. The mark of the blood magician.

Are you ready ?" she asked, spinning the chamber.Kell gazed through the gate at the waiting castle. "No."At that, she offered him the sharpest edge of a grin. "Good," she said. "The ones who think they're ready always end up dead.

No one suffers as beautifully as you do.

He suffered," added Athos softly. "But not like you." He brought his mouth closer. "No one suffers as beautifully as you." There it was, in the corner of Holland's mouth, the crease of his eye. Anger. Pain. Defiance. Athos smiled, victorious.

Because Rhy didn’t need his protection, not anymore, and he’d only told a partial truth when he said they both needed this.The whole truth was, Rhy needed it more.Because Kell had given him a gift he did not want, could never repay.He’d always envied his brother ’s strength.And now, in a horrible way, it was his.He was immortal.And he hated it.And he hated that he hated it. Hated that he’d become the thing he never wanted to be, a burden to his brother, a source of pain and suffering, a prison. Hated that if he’d had a choice, he would have said no. Hated that he was grateful he hadn’t had a choice, because he wanted to live, even if he didn’t deserve to.But most of all, Rhy hated the way his living changed how Kell lived, the way his brother moved through life as if it were suddenly fragile. The black stone, and whatever lived inside it, and for a time in Kell, had changed his brother, woken something restless, something reckless. Rhy wanted to shout, to shake Kell and tell him not to shy away from danger on his account, but charge toward it, even if it meant getting hurt.Because Rhy deserved that pain.He could see his brother suffocating beneath the weight of it. Of him.And he hated it.And this gesture—this foolish, mad, dangerous gesture—was the best he could do.The most he could do.

Lila cringed at the ghost of Barron's words, a memory with edges still too sharp to touch.

After all, if you run far enough, no one can catch you.

Lila backed away toward the curtain. "Do you just... stand here until I need you?"The woman smiled and dug a volume from a pocket. "I have a book.""Let me guess, a religious text?""Actually," said Ister, perching on the low couch, "it's about pirates."Lila smiled.

A wiry crewman named Kobis sat at the end of a couch, reading a book in the low light, clearly relishing the closest thing he ever found to peace and quiet

Sydney, look at me.' He rested his hands on the car roof and leaned in. 'No one is going to hurt you. Do you know why?' She shook her head, and Victor smiled. 'Because I'll hurt them first.

Myths do not happen all at once. They do not spring forth whole into the world. They form slowly, rolled between the hands of time until their edges smooth, until the saying of the story gives enough weight to the words—to the memories—to keep them rolling on their own. But all stories start somewhere, and that night, as Rhy Maresh walked through the streets of London, a new myth was taking shape.

She handed back the cigar and dug the silver watch out of her vest pocket. It was warm and smooth, and she didn't know why she liked it so much, but she did. Maybe because it was a choice. Taking it had been a choice. Keeping it had been one, too. And maybe the choice started as a random one, but there was something to it.

Some people steal to stay alive, and some steal to feel alive. Simple as that.

Crime isn't that complicated. People steal because taking something gives them something. If they're not in it for the money, they're in it for control. The act of taking, of breaking the rules, makes them feel powerful. They're in it for the sheer defiance. Some people steal to stay alive, and some steal to feel alive.

Crime isn't that complicated. People steal because taking something gives them something. If they're not in it for the money, they're in it for the control. The act of taking, breaking the rules, makes them feel powerful. They're in it for the sheer defiance.

She sank her teeth into his bottom lip, drawing blood, and gave a wicked laugh, and still he kissed her. Not out of desperation or hope or for luck, but simply because he wanted to. Saints, he wanted to. He kissed her until the cold night fell away and his whole body sang with heat. He kissed her until the fire burned up the panic and the anger and the weight in his chest, until he could breathe again, and until they were both breathless.

He suffered," added Athos softly. "But not like you." He brought his mouth closer. "No one suffers as beautifully as you.

But these words people threw around - humans, monsters, heroes, villains - to Victor it was all just a matter of semantics. Someone could call themselves a hero and still walk around killing dozens. Someone else could be labeled a villain for trying to stop them. Plenty of humans were monstrous, and plenty of monsters knew how to play at being human.

A queen could leave her t

For the ones who dream of stranger worlds.

You don't understand," gasped Eli. "No one understands.""When no one understands, that's usually a good sign that you're wrong.

Ah, there you are, Bard,” came a familiar voice, and she turned to see Alucard striding over.“Saints, is that a dress you’re in? The crew will never believe it.”“You’ve got to be kidding me,” growled Kell.

Caring was a thing with claws. It sank them in, and didn’t let go. Caring hurt more than a knife to the leg, more than a few broken ribs, more than anything that bled or broke and healed again. Caring didn’t break you clean. It was a bone that didn’t set, a cut that wouldn’t close.

It was better not to care but sometimes, people got in. Like a knife against armor, they found the cracks, slid past the guard, and you didn’t know how deep they were buried until they were gone and you were bleeding on the floor.

Victor was the first to speak, and when he did, it was with an eloquence and composure perfectly befitting the situation