The Girl at Midnight

...I like to be around all these books. They’re very good at making you forget your troubles. It’s like having a million friends, wrapped in paper and scrawled in ink

The young always think they’re invincible, right until the moment they learn otherwise. Usually, the hard way

Humans make art to remember and be remembered,” said Caius. “Art is their weapon against forgetting.

One needs only a single match to start a fire

Memories make us who we are,” he said. “Without them, we are nothing.

Echo looked around at her sea of tomes, and a single word came to mind: tsundoku. It was the Japanese word for letting books pile up without reading them all.

Every good fairy tale has a kernel of truth to it.

She had gone to the library in search of hope, but what she'd found instead was a child. It would take her many years to realize that the two were not so different.

She was fond of books. They were an escape from responsibilities,

Where flowers bloom, you'll find your way, through the darkness and the flames, but beware the price that you must pay, for only the worthy will know my name.

But the only thing worse than remembering the feel of Rose in his arms, the softness of her black and white feathers, the sound of her voice when she sang quietly to herself, would be forgetting it.

If war had taught him anything, it was that it took the people who deserved long and happy lives and gave them short, brutal ones instead.

But think carefully on it. Names are not a thing to be rushed. There’s power in names.

Dorian's scar itched. It did that when he was agitated, or angry, or experiencing anything one might call emotion. Or when rain was on the horizon, but he didn't think that was entirely relevant to why it was itching now.

Backpfeifengeicht," Echo said. It was one of her favorite words. German. A face made for punching. It sited Ruby perfectly. Confusion flitted across Ruby's face for a half second. It was the sweetest half second of her life. "What does that mean?" Ruby said. Echo could almost taste how much it pained her to ask that. Echo smiled, saccharine sweet. "Look it up

Besides”—Jasper smiled, teeth pearly white and predatory—“it’ll be a cold day in hell when I complain about having a hot piece like you in my bed.

Not the truth, but close enough. Maybe she ought to make that her life motto

Echo lived her life according to two rules, the first of which was simple: don't get caught. ........ Some rules it would seam were meant to be broken.......... Rule number two, Echo thought snagging a pork bun from a food stall as she sailed past it. If you do get caught, run.

It would be earth-shatteringly poor manners for you to whip out your sword in my home.” And then, oh sublime horror, Jasper winked. “After all, we’ve only just met.

If her hormones had a face, she would slap it.

If Tanith’s insincerity were gold, Caius thought, I’d be a rich man indeed.

A magic-wielding psycho with a grudge might have been hot on her heels, but she hadn’t eaten since the slice of cold pizza she’d had for breakfast.

Warlocks had been human once, but dark magic came with a price, and their humanity had been the cost of their power.

Jasper was staring at Dorian, golden eyes guarded but keen. Caius tried to see his friend as Jasper did. Scarred skin impossibly fair. Gray hair with a soft luster that made it look almost silver. A single blue eye, as clear as the sea at morning. Jasper’s nest was a testament to his appreciation of beautiful things, and Dorian was lovely, even with his scars, even if he never recognized it in himself.

tsundoku. It was the Japanese word for letting books pile up without reading them all.

Young?” Echo took another look at the date. “This is a hundred years old.” “Youth is a relative concept.