Sarah Cross

“She never felt nervous around Blue. She could hold her own with him, laugh at him, and, if necessary, slap him. There was something reassuring about that.”

“I want to stay," he admitted. "I haven't felt this way in a long time. I feel like ... like I came up from being underwater, and I can finally breathe. I don't want to stop feeling that way. That's how I know I have to leave.”

“He kissed her lightly on the nose, and she laughed. Blue eyed her with faux seriousness. "How was that? Any weakness?""No. But I don't think there would have been anyway.""Well, then, how about this?" His lips brushed hers, his mouth teasing her lower lip, and her eyes closed and she shivered as his fingers caught her hair. And then suddenly, there wasn't any space between them. The sensation of drowning was there, but it wasn't like her strength was leaving her. It was like she wanted to be part of him. Like she didn't know or care where she ended and he began.When they drew apart, she whispered, "No weakness.""Really?" he said. "'Cause I'm feeling a little weak." She felt him smile against her mouth. And they both laughed, shook with it. Their faces were too close, noses and cheeks pressed awkwardly together, but neither one of them moved. She tightened her arms around him, and he held her just as tightly. His breath murmured against her cheek."You're safe with me, Mira. And I'm safe with you.”

“You crazy liar," he said breathlessly."You knew I was lying.""Not to - that degree.""Okay, so maybe I like you a little.”

“It seared her senses; it made her feel alive, even as it sucked that life away - and she kept coming back to it, again and again. Waves of sensation pulled her under - drowning her. But Blue made drowning feel like the loveliest thing. Like she was losing her breath, but she didn't need it, didn't want it, only wanted him.”

“You're - you're something else, someone really special, and I feel completely justified in being in love with you.”

“It freaks me out they're sort of involved, and yet, one day, Viv's stepmom is going to order Henley to kill Viv.""Tell me about it." Blue switched to an exaggerated shrewish voice. "By the way, garden boy, when you'e done trimming the hedges, could you cut out my daughter's heart and bring it to me so I can eat it? That's a lot to ask of someone you're paying minimum wage.”

“I'm swimming," Caspian announced. "Sort of. Do you think that will interfere with my mermaid search? If I fall into the ocean and I'm not drowning, do you think she'll bother to save me?""I think your mermaid probably has a life," Wills said..."You can't count on her to be waiting around for you every day. So drowning on purpose makes you an idiot.”

“Mira sat down on the rim of the fountain. The marble ledge was damp, and mist sprinkled her skin. Coins shimmered under the water like fish scales. She counted them, each one a wish, and wondered how love could be anything but good.”

“Curiosity killed the brat.”

“Blue was standing over her, shaking out his wet hair like an annoying blue dog. Beads of water clung to the muscle of his chest. He was wiry, not buff like Henley, but his body made up for size with definition. Nothing could make up for his personality. "Stop dripping on me," Mira snapped.”

“So many fairy tales were about breaking taboos, and being punished for crossing lines you shouldn't have crossed.Touching a spindle you were forbidden to touch. Inviting a witch into your cottage, and accepting the shiny apples she brought you, even though you knew better, because you wanted them.And while most heroes or heroines managed to scratch or scheme their way out of peril, it was easier to avoid doing something stupid in the first place. Smarter, better, and infinitely less fraught with regret.”

“The razor blade hanging from her neck made her feel brave. Honest. A naked blade hid nothing, feared nothing. She wanted to be like that. Because that was how you found yourself, created yourself. You didn't hide. You didn't wait for the perfect moment to settle on you like a butterfly, like magic. You went out and made magic. Made your own wishes come true.”

“Birthdays were wretched, delicious things when you lived in Beau Rivage. The clock stuck midnight, and presents gave way to magic.Curses bloomed.Girls bit into sharp apples instead of birthday cake, chocked on the ruby-and-white slivers, and collapsed into enchanted sleep. Unconscious beneath cobweb canopies, frozen in coffins of glass, they waited for their princes to come. Or they tricked ogres, traded their voices for love, danced until their glass slippers cracked.A prince would awaken, roused by the promise of true love, and find he had a witch to destroy. A heart to steal. To tear from the rib cage, where it was cushioned by bloody velvet, and deliver it to the queen who demanded the princess's death. Girls became victims and heroines.Boys became lovers and murderers.And sometimes... they became both.”

“You don't like Blue, do you?""No," Mira said, caught off guard by the change of subject."I was worried he was doing his knight-in-tarnished-armor thing and it was winning you over.”

“They said every year was a gift, not a guarantee, and ought to be celebrated accordingly.”

“You don't want to sit by me?" Rafe called to her with a grin."No, I don't," Layla said. "I wouldn't sit by you if every other seat in the room was on fire.""Ouch." Rafe winced, then rebounded with a sleazy smile. "That would hurt me if I believed it. You know you're curious to go for a ride.""About as curious as I am to get syphilis," Layla snapped.”

“It was hard to be honest, to open up, and reveal something that sounded crazy. Because once you told someone the truth, that person had a piece of you—and they could belittle it, destroy it. They could turn your confession into a wound that never healed.”

“You're safe with me, Mira. And I'm safe with you."He kissed her again to prove it. And when the clock struck one - that lone, ominous tone hovering in the dark - they were still kissing. Her razor blade had snagged his shirt and nicked his chest, and they'd ended up lying in the grass, hidden inside a shadow, ignoring their names whenever someone called them. He traced her mouth again and again, like he still couldn't believe it was real.There would always be a part of him she couldn't know. A secret place where his heartbreak was stored, where lost innocence and regret filled the air like smoke. She had no desire to open that door ... but she didn't know if that would change one day. If the key would tempt her, if a fairy would manipulate her or she would just be curious. But she had to believe she could be strong enough to resist. That what she wanted - what they both wanted - mattered more than the path that had been laid out for them.She let her hand slip under his shirt to touch the heart mark on his back, and he brought her other hand to his lips, and kissed every finger he'd entrusted with the key. He was so much more than his curse, and she was so much more than the girl who could betray him. Together ... they could be anything.”

“Do you know where Blue is? Can you get him for me? Please?""Frederick," Bliss said. "Do you always bring a sword to a pool party? You are familiar with the concept of rust, I hope.""I - yes, of course," Freddie said, looking as if he wasn't sure whom to answer first, but deferring to the fairy out of respect for his magical elders. "I have it in case there's trouble, and I need to decapitate Fel - er, someone. Anyone, rather. Anyone in need of decapitation.""Frederick, that is very disturbing," Bliss said. "I do hope you're joking.""Where's Blue?" Mira shouted.”

“She could end up as just another girl in a forbidden room, a sleeping beauty who would never wake.He didn't want that for her. And she didn't want that either. It was the wrong kind of forever. A soulless, frozen love.”

“There was one thing Felix had denied her. One prohibition he'd set down - which made it something to fixate on and wonder about.What was so secret about suite 3013?”

“Mira, I'm about to be naked," Blue said as he whipped off his belt and tossed it on the floor. "So watch out. Well, in my underwear.""I've seen you in your bathing suit," Mira said. "It's the same thing.""It is not the same thing," Blue said. "When it's accompanied by seventies porn music, it's an X-rated strip show." Blue yanked off his shirt. "Freddie, you're kind of slow on the uptake. Eine kleine porn music, please."Freddie scrunched his forehead in distaste. "I don't want to plug my guitar in just so I can play some bow-chicka-wow-wow accompaniment to your strip show.Mira laughed. "Bow-chicka-what was that, Freddie?”

“Henley squinted at her. "What about you?"Mira looked around, flustered, hair swinging heavily as she moved. "What about me what?"Henley sighed and let the chair thunk to the floor. "What role are you playing? Felix's underage girlfriend, Blue's obsession, or Freddie's princess?""That's ... rude," she said."It was rude when you asked me, too.”

“She used to imagine her parents and happy endings she would never have. Now she envisioned torments that were all too real.She pictured one of Cinderella's stepsisters planting her foot on a cutting board - and biting down hard as the cleaver chopped through the bone of her big toe.She imagined a princess used to safety, luxury, throwing the rank hide of a donkey over her shoulders, its boneless face drooping past her forehead like a hideous veil.And she imagined her future self, flat on her back in bed, limbs as heavy as if they'd been chained down. Mice scurried across her body, leaving footprints on her dress. Spiders spun an entire trousseau's worth of silk and draped her in it, so it appeared she wore a gown of the finest lace, adorned with rose petals and ensnared butterflies. Beetles nestled between her fingers like jeweled rings - lovely from a distance, horrific up close.”

“Pretty enough to make Henley the Huntsman want to save me ... but not too pretty, because too pretty is what sets my stepmother off. And she wants me gone - she wanted me gone years ago."Viv twisted restlessly. "I don't know what she's waiting for. Waiting to make him hate me, I guess. Make him loyal to her so he'll cut my heart out when she asks him to ... And then if Henley doesn't kill me, there's the matter of being pretty enough to attract some necrophiliac playboy. Someday my prince will come - and be enamored of my lifeless body. There's some happily-ever-after for you.”

“Come over here so I can wipe my hands on your shirt," she said, holding up her beer-sticky hands. Eyebrows raised in amusement, Blue did as she asked. He stood between her legs at the front of the car, his knees against the bumper."Go for it," he said.Her wet fingers grazed the muscle of his abdomen as she fumbled to dry her hands on his T-shirt. Blue sucked in a breath when her hands brushed his skin, and something electric ran through her. A flush burned her cheeks. She made herself focus on the artwork on his T-shirt."Now the ick is on you, where it belongs," she said."You are a very nasty princess," Blue said.”

“Can't handle your alcohol, Mira?" Blue called over."I didn't expect it to go everywhere! Now I smell like beer.""It could be worse," Blue said. "You could smell like Rafe's sex life, like Caspian does." Poor Caspian was huddled in the blanket, staring longingly out to sea, oblivious to their conversation."That was low," Freddie said, hiding a grin.”

“I never imagined you'd be so difficult," he muttered."Maybe that's why you're supposed to meet me when I'm unconscious. So I don't burst your bubble right away.”

“Mira moved into the light like a sleepwalker, leaving Blue behind in the dust, the unused room, the past.She thought of the fabled hundred years that cursed girls like her had slept, and how, after that much time, everything would be covered by a thick blanket of dust, including the princess. The intrepid prince would have to trust that something beautiful was hidden underneath. He'd kiss her and the first color to be revealed would be the chapped pink of her lips.Her eyes went to Freddie, playing his guitar and lit by the sun. She couldn't picture him kissing a girl coated by dust - he was too alive for that.He was golden. And she ... she was covered with death, with her grief over her parents. She'd tried to replace them with dreams, and she'd drifted through life in a haze, her eyes seeking ghosts instead of the world around her.She was already asleep.She had been for a long time.”

“Blue smiled. He had one of those devastatingly charming smiles that made you hate him even more when you noticed it. It was like he was fighting dirty.”

“I'm starting to think it was a mistake to introduce you to the whole gang," he said.Rafe was still hitting on Layla; Layla was fighting with him, insisting that fairies didn't turn good people into monsters, they just exposed the monstrousness that was already there; and Freddie was doing his best to play peacemaker, or etiquette coach from 1850, or whatever he thought he was doing. Henley was watching the group from outside, leaning against the window, smoking a cigarette. Viv was sawing into an apple tart with a masochistic grin on her face."No wonder you're such a freak," Mira said finally.”

“I'm looking for freedom with a side of restraining order, but everything just comes with bacon.”

“He shut off the mower when he saw them - and scowled.Mira hoped that wasn't Viv. But on the bright side: someone else was unhappy to see Blue and Freddie. The world was already making more sense.”

“The whole morning was absurd. She'd never felt so angry, or aggressive, in her entire life. She didn't normally want to hit people, or even yell at them - because normally you could reason with people. And if you couldn't, you could avoid them. But Blue was impossible. He was so rude and belligerent and ... relentless about it.”

“Freddie dropped down beside them, distressed. "Let go of her, Blue; that looks really bad.""Feel free to stop him," Mira said, "instead of frowning at me like a sad puppy.""Hey!" Freddie said, looking like a sadder puppy."I'm not going to molest you," Blue said."You're molesting my wrist," Mira said. "I don't want you touching me.""I didn't want you to knee me in the lungs, so I guess we're even.”

“She wasn't used to kisses that were simultaneously startling and wonderful, casual and memorable. Her world was so much smaller than that.”

“Mira shrugged. If Rachel thought long-distance romance was weird, she'd think the truth - a fake long-distance romance, complete with eight months' worth of love letters that Mira had written to cover her tracks - was a whole lot weirder.”

“[S]he stepped out into the yard, like a thief in reverse: breaking and exiting. Stealing herself.”

“A naked blade hid nothing, feared nothing. She wanted to be like that. Because that was how you found yourself, created yourself. You didn't hide. You didn't wait for the perfect moment to settle on you like a butterfly, like magic.You went out and made magic. Made your own wishes come true.”

“You couldn't hide from bad things and pretend they didn't exist–that left you with a dream world, and dream worlds eventually crumbled. You had to face the truth. And then decide what you wanted.”

“Because, if you could love someone, and keep loving them, without being loved back . . . then that love had to be real. It hurt too much to be anything else.”

“That was like watching my dad French-kiss a raccoon-I feel violated on so many levels.”

“And at that age, the only boys I didn’t think were gross were dead scientists – and it’s not like I wanted to kiss those guys. (No offense, Niels Bohr.) ”