Learning is what makes things fun.

Dancing with Evander is like walking on air, but with the certainty of knowing he’ll be waiting to catch me when I’m ready to come back down.

Your mother brought you into this world as a whole person,” the princess huffs, pulling so hard that I slide to the edge of the bed. “And last I checked, you still are one. No matter what or who you’ve lost. Now get” – she jerks on my arms – “up!

Those finished with life crave it less over time.

And with the melody came the unmistakable sound of water slapping against the rocks far below us, slowly eroding the foundation of Port Coire and everything I loved.

I can’t stand to see a living thing in pain, least of all Evander. The nuns who raised me said I’d been that way since birth. Trying to put the wings back on a trampled butterfly. Tending the weakest plants in their garden. That’s what made me so well suited for walking in the Deadlands, they said. My love of life.

The sun still rises and sets, like it always has. It seems cruel that it wouldn’t stop, just for a little while, to show how much darker the world is without them in it.

There’s nothing you can do, Valoria. I’m not one of your inventions. I’m broken, part of me is missing, and you can’t fix me with copper wires or a piece of string.

Nothing from the ocean is meant to survive on land forever.

I raise my face to his, ready for the crush of his lips against mine, wanting to share more than these nervous breaths.