Aldara

“I have built a you within me, or you have. I wonder what of me there is in you.”
― Amal El-Mohtar, This Is How You Lose the Time War

“You did not rescue me,” Casiopea replied. “I opened that chest. Besides, I wasn’t a princess in a tower. I knew I’d get away one way or another, and I was not waiting for a god to liberate me.”
― Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Gods of Jade and Shadow

“I’ve never met someone who is so perfectly my favorite person.”
― Emily Henry, Beach Read

“When there was but a gray speck of his heart left, he bend down and kissed her again, briefly, a brush of lips. A grain of dust may contain a universe, and it was the same for him. Within that gray speck there lived his love and he gave it to Casiopea, for her to see. He'd fallen in love slowly and quietly, and it was a quiet sort of love, full of phrases left unsaid, laced with dreams. He had imagined himself a man for her, and he allowed her to see the extant of this man, and he gave her this speck of heart, which was a man, to hold for a moment before taking it back the second before it faded.”
― Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Gods of Jade and Shadow