Brinley

“He tells you to play, so you play. He tells you to curtsy, so you curtsy. He tells what you are meant to do and what you are meant not to do, so you do and you dono do. He tells you not to be angry, so you smile, you turn your eyes down, you are quiet and do exactly as he says in the hopes that this is what he wants, and then one night you realize that you have given him so much of yourself that you are nothing but the curtsy and the smile and the quiet. That you are nothing.”
― Marie Lu, The Kingdom of Back

“But if you loved a thing, the work was never done”
― Leigh Bardugo, King of Scars

“You rarely regret the things you do, but always the things you don't.”
― Marie Lu, Rebel

“She opens her eyes.

“Adelina?” she whispers, blinking. And all I can see before me is the little sister who used to braid my hair, who sang to me and whimpered under the stairs, who bandaged my broken finger and came to me when the thunder rolled outside. She is my sister, always, even in death, even beyond.

My heart twists again as I think of what I am doing, and I choke back a sob. Oh, Magiano. I will miss all the days we will never have, all the moments we will never share. Forgive me, forgive me, forgive me.

I open my mouth. I mean to tell my sister I’m sorry, sorry I couldn’t save her in the mountains, sorry I didn’t listen to her, I didn’t tell her more often that I loved her. I am ready to say a thousand words.

But I say none of them. Instead, I say, “The deal is done.”

A faint glow encircles Violetta. The pillar vanishes. She sucks in a deep gasp of air, then falls to her knees. She is alive.”
― Marie Lu, The Midnight Star