Botkin cannot build house from such little twigs! he shouted at me, giving my upper arm a squeeze. Eat something!
We were all supposed to make it.
Well, she did almost die trying to rid us of your cursed spawn.
Wylan shook his head. You don't understand. It was me. I caused this. He wanted a new wife. He wanted an heir. A real heir, not a moron who can barely spell his own name.
When you can't beat the odds, change the game.
When this is all over, when Van Eck has been put in his place, when Rollins goes running, and the money is paid, these will still be my streets. I can’t live in a city where I can’t hold up my head.
You were not wrong to dare.
Did you get Wylan's powders?
I saw how he looked at you, he said.
The Little Palace had become a very lonely place. I was surrounded by people, but I almost felt like they couldn't see me, only what they needed from me.
She's worth it. And one day maybe she'll let me chase her into a chapel.
Go somewhere you're wanted.
The easiest way to steal a man's wallet is to tell him you're going to steal his watch.
Nina just liked to flirt with everything. He'd once seen her make eyes at a pair of shoes she fancied in a shop window.
Maybe I should have come alone. You could go wait by the boat.
Inej frowned. I thought you and Nina chose four outbreak sites on the Staves.
I did apprentice with a Fjerdan shipbuilder. And a Zemeni gunsmith. And a civil engineer from the Han Province of Bolh. Tried my hand at poetry for a while. The results were … unfortunate. These days, being Sturmhond requires most of my attention.
Madam's spirits have been restored! The sun can once more shine!
I'm the kind of bastard they only manufacture in the barrel.
I shivered in my kefta, comforted by the soft brush of the fox fur.
A beast like that rests; he does not die.
Every man is a safe, a vault of secrets and longings.
Diana was the only Amazon who had been born an Amazon.
Greed may do your bidding, but death serves no man.
We all die. Not everyone dies for a reason.
Tell me, priest,' I ordered, 'or I'll cut you open right here, and your followers can try to pray you back together.
Nina— he started, then stopped. Nina, I am with you because you let me be with you. There is no greater honor than to stand by your side.
I didn't belong in this beautiful world, and if I didn't find a away to use my power, I never would.
I want you focused on what we have to do tomorrow night. After that, you'll get all the information you want.
You never improvise,' I said. 'Everything you do is calculated. You change personalities the way other people change hats.
Nina glanced from Inej to Kaz and saw they both wore the same expression. Nina knew that look. It came after the shipwreck, when the tide moved against you and the sky had gone dark. It was the first sight of land, the hope of shelter and even salvation that might await you on a distant shore.
Why don't you just admit that you wanted to belong to him? Why don't you admit that part of you still does?
There wasn't even a bed in the room, just a narrow settee where Nina curled up every night. When Kaz had asked Nina why, she'd simply said, I don't want anyone getting ideas. A man doesn't need a bed to get ideas, Nina.
It felt like the hush of the woods before the snare yanks tight and the rabbit starts to scream. It felt like a trap.
Do you want to beat Van Eck? Kaz asked.
If you ever get tired of skin and bones," she called to Mal, "I've got something to tempt you." I stiffened. Mal glanced over his shoulder. Slowly, he looked her up and down. "No," he said flatly. "You don't.
You don't have to pay attention, but you do have to look like you're paying attention.
And that was what destroyed you in the end: the longing for something you could never have.
I can smell your ambition like blood in the water.
You can't live in fear. You make things happen or they happen to you.
I've been waiting for you a long time, Alina, he said. You and I are going to change the world.
You see, every man is a safe, a vault of secrets and longings.
But if you couldn't open a door, you just had to make a new one.
She'd often wished to chip away a bit of his arrogance, but she couldn't bear the idea of seeing Kaz stripped of his pride.
But Ana Kuya used to tell me that hope was tricky like water. Somehow it always found a way in.
Perfect night for tearing a hole in the universe, no?
I don't care if you danced naked on the roof of the Little Palace with him. I love you, Alina, even the part of you that loved him.
She'd let herself be led because she hadn't known where she'd wanted to go.
The Darkling slumped back in his chair. Fine, he said with a weary shrug. Make me your villain.
