Lauren DeStefano

“His lips are familiar. I know the shape of them, know how to make mine fit against them. His taste is familiar too. For all the illusions and colors and sweet smells... he has always tasted like skin. His breaths are shallow. I'm holding his life against my tongue, between my rows of teeth. He's offering it up.”

“Helplessly I look at him. He will never be just Rowan again. I will never be just Rhine. Everything has been tampered with.”

“Even things that aren't broken can be fixed.”

“It taught that there are three versions of things: the one I see in my mind, and the one that carries onto the paper, and then what it ultimately becomes.”

“I think he's beginning to understand, and understanding is a horrible thing.”

“This is the real Madame. I can see why she hides herself in accents and gems and exotic perfumes. I can see why she's grown to hate anything to do with love. She isn't evil or corrupt the way that Vaughn is. She's broken. Only broken.”

“Maybe it is desperation," I say. "Maybe we can't let things fall apart without trying. We can't let go of the people we love."He looks at me, and in the sunlight his eyes come alive with greens and golds. "Sometimes we can," he says.”

“To die trying would be better than to die without purpose.”

“I don’t look away, because she’s right: I betrayed her, and I’m not sorry. To keep her safe, I would betray a thousand kingdoms.”

“We have each other, and we always will, whatever happens. And if someone does murder me, you needn’t worry because I’ll come haunt you.”He smirks. “Rattling the windows and tipping glasses and things?”“I’d say nice things while you slept so you’d have good dreams,” I say. “Or maybe mean things if I’m jealous of the other girls you smile at.”

“I've loved you since the day I stole the atlas for you," Gabriel says, because he thinks I'm asleep.”

“I wish I could remember it. I wish I had a memory of that first violent shove, the shock of cold air, the sting of oxygen into new lungs. Everyone should remember being born. It doesn't seem fair that we only remember dying.”

“I draw back,gently step out of his hands that gripped my shoulders and were just edging their way to either side of my throat”

“There are so many of us, so many girls. The world wants us for our wombs or our bodies, or it doesn't want us at all.”

“I think she's brave. I think that nobody has ever believed what she could be capable of. All her life, nobody was listening.”

“There's a world out there that nobody has bothered to promise her.”

“Give me time""For you, always.”

“We are stronger than we've credited ourselves to be. We have been the victims and the witnesses. We have said a lifetime of good-byes.”

“There is a dark place calling to me, but I will not go just yet. I know I can't return from it.”

“We hope for things we may not get to see, and we hold on with both hands because it's one of the few things that can't be stolen from us.”

“Hope, that risky, illustrious thing. It should have gone extinct by now, but we keep it alive.”

“I think humans have always been desperate. I think it has always been about doing something awful if it might help, when the only other option is death. Maybe that's what being a parent is supposed to feel like.”

“Home?' I say. It's a word that can mean anywhere and nowhere.”

“Set fire to the broken pieces; start anew.”

“Maybe hope isn't the most dangerous thing a person can have. Maybe love is.”

“I miss something I never even had.”

“I like the idea of something greater than us. We destroy things with our curiosity. We shatter with our best intentions. We are no closer to perfection than we were one hundred years ago, or five hundred.”

“She's been conned, ruined, left for dead, and she's not going to forgive any of it. She will soldier on, if only out of spite.”

“I listen to the rain and the thunder, and I think I hear Jenna's voice in them, sounding out a warning. She's been gone for months now. But sometimes it feels like she's more alive than ever. She's one of the indecipherable things that make sounds in the wind, and she's in every kind of dream - the good and the awful.”

“When we were first married, I thought he must have been the most heartless, hateful man I'd ever known, but he was just as much a prisonor as I was. Where Vaughn imprisoned me with walls, he imprisoned his son with ignorance.”

“Bet you never eat, he says. Bet you drink up the oxygen like it's butter. Bet you can go for days on nothing but thoughts.”

“I was born into a world that was already dying; I belong to it.”

“It's very early, still dark, but outside there's the warm smell of springtime, like things rotting and blooming in one stagnant mist. I realize now that I've always craved the brutality of it. Shoots forcing their way up from the earth, petals popping open.The start of life is always brutal, isn't it? We're born fighting.”

“She has the majesty of hurricanes and explosions.”

“I don't realize how badly I've needed to say those words until they've left my mouth. They hang in the air. And all I want now is to be away from them. To leave the truth behind. Because if I can't do anything about it, I certainly don't want to face it.”

“I stare at my reflection in the glass, and I see two versions of myself: the twin sister, and the bride. "It was supposed to be better than this," I whisper.”

“The thing about hope is that it doesn't go away even when it serves no purpose.”

“I dream of where I am, and what lies before me. I do not dream of where I've been or what I've left behind. I tell myself that this is what I've wanted from the moment I was captured, and that I should be happy.”

“He's in his hell, and I'm in mine.”

“There is no darkness like that of a confined space. It's darker than the inside of eyelids, and darker than the night.”

“Perhaps... you love too fiercely.”

“Her mind is a bird that's trapped inside her skull, flapping and thrashing, never breaking free.”

“In another time, another place, I wonder who we would have been to each other.”

“No matter how lonely it makes me, and no matter how wide and horrific the loneliness, at least I remember who I am.”

“Cure" is one of the most precious words in the English language. It's a short word. A clean and simple word. But it isn't so easy a thing as it sounds. There are questions like: How will this affect us in ten years? In twenty? What will it do to our children? Our children's children?”

“You've always had trouble relinquishing control, haven't you? But it's a rewarding thing. People need a leader. They need to feel that someone is in charge, that they're in the hands of someone greater than they are. It's far scarier for each of us to believe that we are the only ones in charge of our own destinies. We know our own downfalls. ~Vaughn”

“Maybe it is desperation. Maybe we can't let things fall apart without trying. We can't let go of the people we love.”

“I never wanted to live forever," she says. "I just wanted enough time.”

“I start trying to stay unconscious. The problem with this is that no amount of willpower can change the reality.”

“You have a way of looking at things. You make it seem as though everything's going to be okay. I can't imagine a more dangerous thing to have than hope like yours.”