_hellcat

“And old enough to know that womenfolk have little enough power of their own. That is why they must have their charms and their tricks. Their books and their ink and blood. Their eyes, their smiles, their hips; their lace and silk, their ribbons and thread …These are your weapons, dearie. You must use them as best you can.”
― Kell Woods, After the Forest

“The little wooden bird is gone.
The last of her past life, carried away with the dead.
For months, she will keep reaching for the bird, hand drifting to her pocket the way it might to a stubborn curl, a motion born of so much habit. She cannot seem to remind her fingers it is gone, cannot seem to remind her heart, which stutters a little every time she finds the pocket empty. But, there, blooming amid the sorrow, is a terrible relief. Every moment since she left Villion, she has feared the loss of this last token.
Now that it is gone, there is a guilty gladness tucked among the grief.
This last, brittle thread to her old life has broken, and Addie has been set well, and truly and forcibly free.”
― V.E. Schwab, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

“Pain can be beautiful," he says, exhaling a cloud of smoke. "It can transform. It can create."
"But I don't want to be in pain," says Henry hoarsely. "I want-"
"You want to be loved."
A small empty sound, half cough, half sob. "Yes."
"Then be loved."
"You make it sound simple."
"It is," says the stranger. "If you're willing to pay.”
― V.E. Schwab, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

“The sun is high, the day hot, and she lays the dress out in the grass to dry, sinks onto the slope besides it in her shift. They sit, side by side in silence, one a ghost of the other. And she realizes, looking down, that this is all she has.
A dress. A slip. A pair of stolen shoes.
Restless, she takes up a stick and begins to draw absent patterns in the silt along the bank. But every stroke she makes dissolves, the change too quick to be the river's doing. She draws a line, watches it begin to wash away before she even finishes the mark. Tries to write her name, but her hand stills, pinned under the same rock that held her tongue. She carves a deeper line, gouges out the sand, but it makes no difference, soon that groove is gone, too, and an angry sob escapes her throat as she casts the stick away.”
― V.E. Schwab, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue