she went to him. he kissed her between the eyes, then whispered something – what, i've always wondered – in her ear.

Three tarot cards splayed before him. He’d taken one of the floor mats out of the car to crouch on to keep from dirtying his uniform trousers. If you combined these two things – the unfathomable and the practical – you were most of the way to understanding A d a m  P a r r i s h.

“Did you love Annie right away, Finnick?” I ask. “No,” A long time passes before he adds, “S h e crept up on m e.”

[Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo]

far beneath the surface of the earth, hidden from the sun and the moon, upon the shores of the starless sea, there is a labyrinthine collection of tunnels and rooms filled with stories.

it hit her then what was so special about adam. that no matter his reputation, or how rocky their first meeting, since the very beginning, olive had felt that he was on her side. over and over, and in ways that she could never have anticipated, he had made her feel unjudged. less alone

darlington was a good talker, but he was happiest when no one was speaking to him, when he didn’t have to perform the ritual of himself and he could simply be left to watch others.

for just a moment, i thought i felt her waver. but then she looked away. “i know you did,” she said. “but it’s not enough.”

“She noticed, he was wearing one black shoe and one navy one, and if she hadn’t already fallen in love with him sometime between the night he’d found Sir Purrcival and the moment she’d walked into this shop on the day of the Gathering and seen him frantically making cups of tea, those mismatched shoes would’ve done it.»

[Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo]

[Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo]

You’re the best thing in my life, I want to tell her. You’re safe and real and perfectly imperfect. We started as a lie, and now we’re the truest thing I’ve ever known.

“It is said that mortal life is empty without the love of God. That the ache of loneliness’s wounds is assuaged by obedience to Him, for in serving God we encounter perfect love and are made whole. But if God is the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, if He is three in one in the Trinity, then God knows nothing of loneliness…God knows nothing of loneliness, because God has never tasted companionship as mortals do: clinging to one another in darkness so complete and sharp it scrapes flesh from bone, trusting one another even as the Devil’s breath blooms hot on their napes.”

and i will not be denied.

“Whoever said lying was hard was so, so wrong. Lying was easy. Lying was like a hot knife slicing through room-temperature butter. Lying was a bunch of words strung together in a pretty sentence designed to make the other person feel like everything was fine. Telling the truth, however, was impossible.”

i am nothing in my soul if not obsessive.

the rapt pupil will be forgiven for assuming the Tsar of Death to be wicked and the Tsar of Life to be virtuous. let the truth be told: there is no virtue anywhere. life is sly and unscrupulous, a blackguard, wolfish, severe. in service to itself, it will commit any offense. so, too, is death possessed of infinite strategies and a gaunt nature- but also mercy, also grace and tenderness. In his own country, death can be kind.