My only comfort is that you never could have been mine. But know that I would have gladly been yours.

I'm a prince, Alina. I can't afford to be myself.

Even now, a boy will smile at me on the street, or Jesper will put his arm around my waist, and I feel like I’m going to vanish. I live in fear that I’ll see one of her—one of my—clients on the street. For a long time, I thought I recognized them everywhere. But sometimes I think what they did to me wasn’t the worst of it.

David looked at me, then, the regret plain on his face. No matter what I said, we both knew the hard truth. We do our best. We try. And usually, it makes no difference at all

We all die,” he said as he jogged off to retrieve his kill. “Not everyone dies for a reason.

For the briefest moment, Ulla despised Signy, as we can only hate those who rescue us from loneliness.

I will tell you a story, one I used to tell to a little boy with dark hair. A silent boy who rarely laughs, who listened more closely than I realized. A boy who had a name and not a title