The Gilded Wolves

Make yourself a myth and live within it, so that you belong to no one but yourself.

History is a myth shaped by the tongues of conquerors.

When you are who they expect you to be, they never look too closely. If you're furious, let it be fuel.

Nothing but a symbol? People die for symbols. People have hope because of symbols. They're not just lines. They're histories, cultures, traditions, given shape.

Fear grew in places unlit by knowledge

Wolves were everywhere. In politics, on thrones, in beds. They cut their teeth on history and grew fat on war.

What would friendship entail? Well, on Wednesdays, we sacrifice a cat to Satan

Her mother's voice rang in her ears: 'Don't capture their hearts. Steal their imagination. It's far more useful.

I don't want to be their equal. I don't want them to look us in the eye. I want them to look away, to blink harshly, as if they'd stared at the sun itself. I don't want them standing across from us. I want them kneeling.

Lust is safer than love, but both can ruin you.

Kisses were not supposed to be like this. Kisses were to be witnessed by stars, not held in the presence of stale death. But as the bones rose around them, Laila saw fractals of white. They looked like pale constellations, and she thought that, perhaps, for a kiss like this, even hell would put forth stars.

Half of winning, my dear wallet, is simply looking victorious.

Séverin crossed his arms. “Zofia, tell him he’s pretty.” Zofia didn’t look up from her tea. “I am personally undecided, but if we’re assessing based on objectivity, then according to the principles of the golden ratio, also known as phi, which is approximately 1.618, your facial beauty is mathematically pleasing.

Aristocracy is just a fancy word for thievery.

When we revise the horror and sanitize the grotesque, we risk erasing the paths that led us here.

But what no one tells you is that even when you decide which world you will live in, the world may not always see you as you would wish. Sometimes it demands that you be so outrageous as to transcend your very skin. You can change your name. Your eye colour. Make yourself a myth and live within it, so that you belong to no one but yourself.

Have you never heard the saying ‘you attract more flies with honey than vinegar’?” “Why would I want to attract flies?” “Never mind.

Nightmares are part of sleeping.

Scars sculpted people into who they were. They were scuffs left by sorrow's fists, and to him, at least, proof of being thoroughly human.

That boy looks like every dark corner of a fairy tale. The wolf in bed. The apple in a witch's palm.

Tristan, my love,” said Laila with dangerous calm. “If you get in the way of a woman’s battle, you’ll get in the way of her sword.

He wished he didn’t know what he had lost. Maybe then every day wouldn’t feel like this. As if he had once known how to fly, but the skies had shaken him loose and left him with nothing but the memory of wings.

He didn't understand that sometimes the only way to take down what had destroyed you was to disguise yourself as part of it.

Fashion, my love, just like the universe, owes you neither explanation nor rationale.

Take what the world owes you by any means necessary,” Pride had said. “The world has a shit memory. It will never pay its debts unless you force its hand.

Enrique, who has always dreamed about what magic might feel like, thought he had found it then: myths and palimpsests, starlight sugaring the air, and the way hope feels painful when shared equally among friends.

I don’t know enough to be serious,” he said carefully. “But I’d like to know enough to have options.

Great minds think alike.” Zofia frowned. “No, they don’t. Otherwise every idea would be uniform.

Nothing was invincible but change.