Reckless

The night breathed through the apartment like a dark animal. The ticking of a clock. The groan of a floorboard as he slipped out of his room. All was drowned by its silence. But Jacob loved the night. He felt it on his skin like a promise. Like a cloak woven from freedom and danger.

He longed for the deep as she longed for the night sky and for white lilies floating on water -- although she still tried to convince herself that love alone could feed her soul.

Since when does the butterfly ask about the caterpillar?

How loud a heart could beat. Until it took your breath away.

The Fairy's dress rustled as she turned. Human women dressed like flowers, layers of petals around a mortal, rotting core.

The tent in which she first met him had smelled of blood, of the death she did not understand, and still she had thought of it all as a game. She had promised him the world. His flesh in the flesh of his enemies. And much too late had she realized what he had sown in her. Love. Worst of all poisons.

A mirror hung between the shelves. Clara stepped in front of it and let her fingers run over the silver roses that covered the frame. She had never seen anything so beautiful. The glass they surrounded was dark, as if the night had spilled onto it. It was misted up, and right where she saw the reflection of her face was the imprint of a hand.

She shed no tears. She just sat there, as if someone had cut out her heart.

What was this yearning, tearing at her insides like hunger and thirst? It couldn't be love. Love was warm and soft, like a bed of leaves. But this was dark, like the shade under a poisonous shrub, and it was hungry. So hungry. It must have some other name, just as there couldn't be the same word for life and death, or for moon and sun

Girl. Woman. So much more vulnerable. Strong and yet weak. A heart that knew no armor.

Her skin smelled of autumn and the wind. Don't Jacob... But it was too late. Clara didn't flinch as he pulled her close. He grabbed her hair, kissed her mouth, and he felt her heart beating as fast as his own. ...Let her go, Jacob. But he kissed her again, and it was his name she whispered, not Will's.

Power. Like wine when you have it. Like poison when you lose it.

I know why you're here ... This world doesn't frighten you half as much as the other one. You have nothing and nobody to lose here. Except Fox, and she clearly worries more about you than you do about her. You've left all that could frighten you in the other world. But then Will came here and brought it all with him.

Guilt is a strong motivator, sometimes even stronger than love.

Therese of Austry would have made a great treasure hunter if she hadn’t been born the daughter of an Emperor.

You make peace with one sister only to declare war on the other. It’s always like that with peace, isn’t it? Always to someone’s detriment, already sowing the seed for the next war.

The best lies stay close to the truth.

In fairy tales, the heroes are punished when they run away from a task. The heroes, not their younger brothers...

Even the Doughskins had to admit it: in this world, only stone could claim to last.

Truth or lie... he had always chosen the lie, to spare his little brother any unpleasant truth.

Hentzau saw the Jade Goyl just as clearly as the Fairy had in her dreams. The pale green stone ran through his human skin like a promise.

Which skin shall I give you, Clara Ferber? Do you want fur? Do you want stone?

The Dark Fairy touched her chest. No heart, like her sisters. So where did the love come from?