The Foxglove King

Opposites are not always in opposition; the day and night are equals. One isn’t good and the other bad. But one does illuminate things while the other obscures, and that has to mean something too, I think.

Are you so accustomed to being used that you don’t realize when it’s happening, as long as it’s done kindly?

Aim for the kneecaps." "Ah, yes." Bastian tied off the linen on her hands. "The kneecaps are the eyes of the legs." They both started at him. Then Gabe shrugged. "That's actually pretty good advice." "Excellent help, the both of you." Lore said.

he gazed up at her like he was fire and she was fuel.

This is what I saw, in the reflections of the tomb." She whispered it almost to herself, broken-voiced. "It's what the goddess dreamed, but I thought I could prevent it. I thought you would choose the world over yourself." "I'm far too selfish for that," Lore whispered.

men generally preferred you to be a set piece in the story they made up, rather than an active player.

She was very familiar with the way people wielded pity like a bayonet, hiding the desire to make sure you knew your place behind false concern.

A moment, then Gabe sighed, as if finally resigning himself to what was about to happen. "Aim for the kneecaps." "Ah, yes." Bastian tied off the linen on her hands. "The kneecaps are the eyes of the legs.

The air around him almost seemed to glimmer, gold dust in the dark. Moonlight made him more beautiful, yes, but in the same way that darkness emphasized a flame. He didn't belong in it; Bastian Arceneaux was antithetical to night.

Books are for everyone.

And the two of you know Lore how?” Bastian didn’t falter at all beneath Val’s shrewd eye. “We’ve been helping her in the Citadel,” he said, skirting close to the truth without revealing it. Then, with a wry smile, “Us outsiders have to stick together, my lady.” “Don’t my lady me.” Val’s eyes swung from Bastian to Lore, calculating. “If Lore trusts you, so will I. But something easily given is easily taken away, and if you put so much as a toe out of line, I will cut it off.” “We wouldn’t dream of it,” Bastian replied. “All appendages will stay exactly where you want them.

Bastian’s carelessness was artificial, a façade built to keep anyone from knowing just how much he cared. She still remembered the lightning-quick way he’d changed that night in the alley, how the lazy air of entitlement had fallen away like a discarded cloak. So many layers, so much crafted, careful nonchalance. Bastian was drowning in it, but he didn’t fool her, though the weak points she’d seen were only hairline cracks in the armor he’d forged over years. It reminded her of herself. How she’d been Night-Sister-Lore, and then poison-runner-Lore and now spy-Lore, each a new persona she’d eased into, a different shell to wear. When she thought about what might be left when all that artifice was stripped away, she came up blank. Like all the things that made her were window dressings on an empty house.

It’s shameful,” he murmured. “It’s shameful, how much they have, how much they steal.” “It is,” Lore said. “I want to do something about it. To fix it, somehow. But I…” She trailed off, shrugged. This was something she’d thought about so often, and never quite been able to translate. “I don’t know how, I guess? I’m one person. One fairly insignificant person, and against so many years of power, I feel completely useless. Like…like trying to dam up a river with a pebble.” “It would take a lot of pebbles,” Gabe agreed.

If grace is blasphemous, build me a pyre.

I get it,” Lore murmured, staring at their hands. “People are different, and just because you’re related to someone doesn’t mean you’re good for each other. But she was all I had, and she looked at me like a was a monster.

But I’ll admit that I’m jealous.” He huffed a rueful laugh. “I’m jealous that his actions never seem to have consequences, when I’m carrying the consequences of an entire family. I’m jealous that it would take a miracle for him to be left alone with nothing, when everything was taken from me in an instant.

Lore knew loneliness. It covered everything she did, a spiderweb that couldn’t be seen but was impossible to free yourself from. It clung.

So,” the Sainted King said. “This is our deathwitch.” Lore fidgeted a moment, wondering if she should curtsy, quickly deciding that it would only lead to falling on her ass. Instead she lifted her chin and clenched her hands in her skirt. “In the flesh.” The corner of the King’s mouth flickered up and down again, a smile only in shape. “They tell me you’ve fallen in with poison runners. How did that happen to a woman of your prodigious talent?” “Too mean to charge for my company, too clumsy for barkeeping, and I’m a terrible cook. That rules out most gainful employment.” She said it pleasantly enough, an answer that gave away nothing important. “My prodigious talent isn’t good for much, honestly.

People who thought they’d been saved tended to deify the savior.

Every shape of affection can maim but a triangle’s formed most like a blade.

I think my father dislikes almost everything.” Alie picked up a pastry, tore off the corner, and put both pieces down without eating one. “It sounds like his beliefs have strained your relationship,” Lore said. “You and your father’s, I mean.” “What relationship?” Alie asked darkly. She picked the pastry on her plate into smaller, still uneaten pieces. “Honestly, we don’t do much at home but pass each other in the halls, and barely even that when we’re at court.

She also kept Gabe and Bastian’s identities out of the story. Telling Mari that the Sun Prince of Auverraine and one of the Presque Mort were in her warehouse was sure to fly like a dead bird.

Where Bastian struggled against his cage, Gabe clung to his own, wanting the walls to shape him, shoving himself inside to make boundaries he knew. He’d built himself into something he thought the world wanted, and though it chafed at him, Lore envied it, just a bit. There was a reassurance in knowing exactly how you were going to be let down.

I’m jealous that his actions never seem to have consequences, when I’m carrying the consequences of an entire family.

I think my father dislikes almost everything.” Ali’s picked up a pastry, tore off the corner, and put both pieces down without eating one. “It sounds like his beliefs have strained your relationship,” Lore said. “You and your father’s, I mean.” “What relationship?” Ali’s asked darkly. She picked the pastry on her plate into smaller, still uneaten pieces. “Honestly, we don’t do much at home but pass each other in the halls, and barely even that when we’re at court.

I think my father dislikes almost everything.

Malcolm told me a story, once,” Gabe continued thoughtfully. “From when he was a kid, before he had the accident that scarred his arms and led him to joining the Presque Mort. He was fascinated by books, but his family only had a few, and he heard there were more in the Church. He walked right up to a clergy member and asked to see the books. It didn’t even occur to him that it might not be possible. Books are for everyone, he thought.” “Did the clergyman think the same?” “He did, fortunately. He took Malcolm to the library, and the head librarian at the time let him look at whatever book he pleased.

The day already felt so surreal, so difficult to hammer into the borders of the life she knew, that all she felt was annoyance and the distant thrum of dread.

The other bloodcoats finally noticed the undead livestock situation. Curly mustache slashed at the animal’s now-fully-risen corpse, but Horse didn’t mind, being already dead. If anything, he seemed curious, nuzzling at his gore-caked shoulder with a bloody nose, neck hanging open like a second mouth. The long lashes around his opaque eyes fluttered, dislodging a fly that had landed there. “Sorry, Horse,” Lore mumbled, then heaved up her coffee on the cobblestones. When she looked up, Curly Mustache was staring at her, at all the ways channeling Mortem had made her monstrous, his face gone nearly as pale as her own. “Heresy,” he said, voice hoarse from shouting. “Evil!” “Melodrama.

To each person is given knowledge according to their station; it is not holy to try to rise above the lot the gods have given you. —The Book of Mortal Law, Tract 90