Val

“You’re about to be rich, Kaz. What will you do when there’s no more blood to shed or vengeance to take?”

“There’s always more.”

“More money, more mayhem, more scores to settle. Was there never another dream?”

He said nothing. What had carved all the hope from his heart? She might never know.

Inej turned to go. Kaz seized her hand, keeping it on the railing. He didn’t look at her. "Stay,” he said, his voice rough stone. “Stay in Ketterdam. Stay with me.”

She looked down at his gloved hand clutching hers. Everything in her wanted to say yes, but she would not settle for so little, not after all she’d been through. “What would be the point?”

He took a breath. “I want you to stay. I want you to … I want you.”

“You want me.” She turned the words over. Gently, she squeezed his hand. “And how will you have me, Kaz?”

He looked at her then, eyes fierce, mouth set. It was the face he wore when he was fighting.

“How will you have me?” she repeated. “Fully clothed, gloves on, your head turned away so our lips can never touch?”

He released her hand, his shoulders bunching, his gaze angry and ashamed as he turned his face to the sea.

Maybe it was because his back was to her that she could finally speak the words. “I will have you without armor, Kaz Brekker. Or I will not have you at all.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Six of Crows

“You remember your first love because they show you, prove to you, that you can love and be loved, that nothing in this world is deserved except for love, that love is both how you become a person and why.”
― John Green, Turtles All the Way Down

“She smiled then, her eyes red, her cheeks scattered with some kind of dust. It was a smile he thought he might die to earn again.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Crooked Kingdom

“I would have come for you. And if I couldn't walk, I'd crawl to you, and no matter how broken we were, we'd fight our way out together-knives drawn, pistols blazing. Because that's what we do. We never stop fighting.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Crooked Kingdom