For the longest time, I saw them as the end of my journey, but now I think they were always meant to represent the beginning of yours.

And you know what the truly sad thing is, Etta?” Sophia whispered. “If he'd asked, if he'd put his case forward, Grandfather would have considered it. I know he would have. Because being born a bastard in this family is still preferable to being born a girl.

I want the life I'm meant to have, Etta. It's as simple as that. My father always says that the way to truly live is to do so without expectation or fear hanging over you, affecting your choices— and that's bloody hard to do with you travelers coming and going. I want to know you the way you know me one day. I want to play my violin, make mistakes, fall in love, live in as many different cities as I can. Would you really take that from me?

How do you fight against a mountain? How do you move it when you don't even have a shovel?” “Maybe you don't have to move it,” Etta said, folding the gown over the lid of the trunk. “Maybe you have to climb it.

Rise and enter the lair, where the darkness gives you your stripes. Tell tyrants, to you, their allegiance they owe," Etta read, running her finger beneath the words within the star. "Seek out the unknown gods whose ears were deaf to lecture. Stand on the shoulders of memory. Bring a coin to the widowed queen. Remember, the truth is in the telling, and an ending must be final.

Half the men worship at her feet; the other half have already proposed marriage, including young Jack, who has sworn to his dear 'miss' that he'll be true if she'll only wait a few more years for him.

Free the fire fluttering inside her rib cage. Work her muscles, the bow, the violin, until she played herself to ash and embers and left the rest of the world behind to smolder.

That's beautiful,” she said. He turned to her. “Would you like me to go take that violin for you? I'd gladly fight whatever angry mob rises up if it might make you smile.” Her heart just about burst at that. Be brave. “I would only want to play for you.

He would not surrender to the disaster of loving her.