The City in Glass

No one loves a city like one born to it, and no one loves a city like an immigrant. No one loves a city like they do when they are young, and no one loves a city like they do when they are old. The people loved the city of Azril in more ways than could be counted. Vitrine loved her city like demons and cats may love things, with an eye towards ownership and the threat of small mayhem.

Anger could start a thing, but it took endurance and forbearance and patience to finish it.

If she had her way, all libraries would be arranged like this, promiscuous, free to mingle, and truth found everywhere and nowhere at all.

Real angels came like a storm, like a nightmare, like the end of the world,

She would love him, and more than she had thought she would, but that was the way of loving most things. You couldn’t portion love out in spoons or cups or slices. You could only let it grow and nurture it if you could, cut it down if you had to.

Even on his knees, he looked like the death of cities, the weeping of mothers and fathers.

The neighborhood speculated ferociously on what treasures the young man kept behind his boarded windows and his thick walls. Some guessed a fortune in pearls, others supposed ingots of gold gotten from his grandmother’s estate. No one even suspected that he had kept more books in one place than any other on the continent, holiest and heresies and art and trash. Five years ago, he had learned that he could not tolerate people, and so the stacks of books grew to keep him company. There were the slender towers of botany treatises as short and delicate as children, the fat stacks of romances that seemed buxom despite their corners, the stalwart disquisitions of war that could be used to build a fortress themselves. Soon, she hoped, he might open at least a window to the outside; if he would not leave himself, perhaps his books would fly out and live in the hearts of those who needed them, just as she needed the book that lived in her own chest.

Vitrine would have shouted curses at him again, but their eyes locked, and suddenly she no longer needed the words. A piece of herself, some dark and deadly and spiteful piece, flew from her and into his eyes, making her a part of him, and for a second time in as many seconds, he flinched in shock. His face was bloody, and her curse would live inside for as long as he would last, which was to say, she would live inside him forever.

I love you so, I love you best," she whispered, nipping firmly at his ear. "I will walk in you, and I will care for you, and I will bring the whole world to rejoice in you.

This is all of you I care to touch. Just this part." "The ruined part." "The part that’s mine.

there stood one who had been formed out of rebellion and rage, shaped by her own hand rather than one greater. She was a thing that had been pared down by pain until there was only a sliver of her left, and everything she had regained, from the top of her dark head to her gleaming black eyes, to her sharp white teeth to her brown skin hectic with a madder blush, she had made herself.

Be vicious, be loved, and be lucky,

They were the heralds of the dawn, when things awakened and were made new, and they came at the end. It occurred to Vitrine that they did not have experience with what came after the end, when everything was over and ruined.

Once you wounded a thing, it scarred if it didn't die first. Perhaps he was the first of his brothers to have ever been wounded; it wasn't impossible. Once you were wounded, if you were lucky, you scarred. He was lucky without being grateful for it.

I know better than to wish for the moon to return to the earth.

They thought they danced for death, but Vitrine knew otherwise. They always danced for life, no matter how death lapped their heels.

The world slipped off of her like she was made of glass, and it only loved her the better for it.

I don’t want it to be beautiful if it isn’t true

Then she put the bitterness away and got to work, because anger could start a thing, but it took endurance and forbearance and patience to finish it.

It was like cutting clouds, like singing in sudden disharmony, like throwing precious jewels into the sea, and, towards the end, a great deal like deboning a chicken.

staring out at the sun that had, against all decency, continued to rise despite everything.

Vitrine shrugged and allowed herself to tumble headlong in as well. This is how you conquer new worlds, she thought as she fell. This is how you break yourself into a thousand pieces that are all equally wrong and unloved.

knives they had concealed in their clothing and the amulets they wore to ward off demons and bad dreams. She was both, and she was not offended.

For one terrible moment, Vitrine allowed herself to believe that it was not as bad as she knew it was.

His mouth opened, he cried out, and it was not for holiness but for her, all for her.

You couldn’t portion love out in spoons or cups or slices. You could only let it grow and nurture it if you could, cut it down if you had to.

Many of them are nothing more than broken edges. Could you give them a place to grind those edges down so that they may sleep without cutting themselves?

Without her eyes to interfere, he felt like a gathering storm.