We still felt strange and lost, I think, but it was good to be strange and lost together. It was good to be lost with a friend.
. . .
“Is that cynicism or cowardice?”
. . .
Simon Snow, it hurts to look at you when you’re this happy. And it hurts to look at you when you’re depressed. There’s no safe time for me to see you, nothing about you that doesn’t tear my heart from my chest and leave it breakable outside my body.
. . .
But if you didn’t know about magic, if you were born Normal or just ignorant, and then you saw some magic—if you witnessed a miracle with your own eyes—would you just leave it be? If you got a glimpse into a secret world, would you pretend it hadn’t happened? Or would you spend the rest of your life trying to find a doorway?
. . .
If you tell them that you mean no harm, and then you never do any harm … They start to like you. They start to look forward to you coming around.
. . .
“People offer up their secrets,” he says. “You don’t have to chase them. There’s nothing people—and nixies and trolls and giants—would rather tell you than their secrets.”
. . .
You are a man, Baz. You are in control, not the thirst. You don’t just take what you want when you want it.
. . .
“It might not be the circle of life,” Lamb says. “But it is the food chain. I didn’t see you feeling sorry for that pig we had for lunch. Or the rabbit you had for dessert. Everything eats something else.” I swing my head towards him. “What eats you?” He raises an eyebrow, giving me a taste of my own medicine. “Existential despair.”
. . .
“It wasn’t his fault—he had no one to teach him. He had no community.” Lamb leans forward, his forearms on his thighs. “The culture that we’ve built here is hundreds of years in the making. We’ve lifted ourselves up. What happened to you—what happened to me—that isn’t our way anymore.”
. . .
Those fights used to feel so good. It meant getting to look at Snow. Getting his attention. Having a place to hurl all my feelings for him, even if they came out spiked and razor sharp. Fighting doesn’t feel good anymore. It feels like breaking something because you don’t know how to fix it.
. . .
The old me thought she would always prevail because she was always right. I’d like some of that confidence back now—even if it did come with a heaping helping of ignorance.
. . .
How have I lived through so many happy endings without ever learning how to save the day?
. . .
I never, ever want to feel this way again. I don’t want to test the limits of this body, even if it might give me a better understanding of what I am.
. . .
Is this why she doesn’t reply to my texts? Because they’re not idiotic enough?
. . .
“Why can’t you just admit that you’d be happier here?” I raise my voice: “Why can’t you see that I wouldn’t be happy anywhere without you?”
