By you, I am forever undone.

Have I told you how hideous you look tonight?” Cardan asks, leaning back in the elaborately carved chair, the warmth of his words turning the question into something like a compliment.“No” I say, glad to be annoyed back into the present. “Tell me.”"I can't.

I missed you," I whisper against his skin and feel dizzy with the intimacy of the admission, feel more naked than when he could see every inch of me. "In the mortal world, when I thought you were my enemy, I still missed you.""My sweet nemesis, how glad I am that you returned.

Those who really love you don't mean to hurt you and if they do, you can't see it in their eyes but it hurts them too.

I love you like in the storybooks. I love you like in the ballads. I love you like a lightning bolt. I've loved you since the third month you came and spoke with me. I loved that you made me want to laugh. I loved the way you were kind and the way you would pause when you spoke, as though you were waiting for me to answer you. I love you and I am mocking no one when I kiss you, no one at all.

You carried my heart in your hands tonight," he said. "But I have felt as if you carried it long before that.

I guess it’s true; no one will ever love you like your family.

I didn’t think it worked like that. I thought love was supposed to happen when you least expected it, like a sap to the skull.

And if the serpent grows in monstrousness and corruption, if it poisons the land of Elfhame itself, then let me be the queen of monsters. Let me rule over that blackened land with my redcap father as a puppet by my side. Let me be feared and never again afraid.