“Beauty is harsh.”

“Dear me. Such harsh truths so early in the morning cannot be good for the digestion.”

“Jem said something then, in a language she didn’t understand. It sounded like “khalepa ta kala.”She frowned at him. “That isn’t Latin?”“Greek,” he said. “It has two meanings. It means that that which is worth having—the good, fine, honorable, and noble things—are difficult to attain.” He leaned forward, closer to her. She could smell the sweet scent of the drug on him, and the tang of his skin underneath. “It means something else as well.”Tessa swallowed. “What’s that?”“It means ‘beauty is harsh’.”

“Jessamine recoiled from the paper as if it were a snake. "A lady does not read the newspaper. The society pages, perhaps, or the theater news. Not this filth.""But you are not a lady, Jessamine---," Charlotte began."Dear me," said Will. "Such harsh truths so early in the morning cannot be good for the digestion.”

“Their beauty had always seemed to him like the beauty of pressed flowers-lovely, but dead.”

“Beautiful. He'd called her beautiful. Nobody had ever called her that before, except her mother, which didn't count. Mothers were required to think you were beautiful.”

“If I was harsh with you, it was because I cannot bear to see you treat yourself as if you are worth nothing. Whatever part you might act to the contrary, I see you as you really are, my blood brother. Not just better than you pretend to be, but better than most people could hope to be.”