Status Updates From Accomplice to the Villain (...

“You think this is the choice I wanted to make? I can’t protect you if my magic isn’t cooperating when we get too close. I can’t lose—”
“To Benedict. I know,” she snapped, shaking off his hand.
“You!” He spun her around, grabbing her face, and bent, pressing his forehead against hers, inhaling deeply as if to breathe her in. He whispered, “I can’t lose you. I will not survive it.”

“You’re lying. That smile is fake”
“Forgive me, but I don’t believe you to be an expert judge on that subject, Sir-Frowns-A-Lot” “It’s. Fake.”
“So what?”
He blinked at her. “So what? What do you mean, so what?”
“Who cares if it’s fake?”
“I care, you urchin, Stop faking it for other people. No one is asking you to. What is wrong?”

‘This was the price of feeling too deeply. Evie knew she was capable of the wildest, most uninhibited joy…but her pain was just as great. Pain was something she hid, twisting herself into knots, trying to clear more space for the people she cared for. And she had only herself to blame for it. This was who she was. It was far too late to change.’

They are making me laugh, so silly and lovely and fun

‘Evie held her midsection with a small moan. “Don’t say ‘breakfast.’ My stomach is eating itself.”
“I’ll make breakfast,” Trystan said quickly
Evie’s eyes went round. “You’ll make what?” Trystan shrugged “It’s just breakfast, Sage. No cause for alarm.”
Trystan had avoided the kitchen since becoming The Villain and now was offering to cook something for the third time in a month.’

Her fingers fell over his lips. “You don’t need to say anything back. I’m not telling you so I can receive platitudes,” she said fiercely. “I’m telling you because you deserve to hear it. I’m telling you because you deserve to know that someone does, very much, love you.” Whatever pieces of him that declaration left behind were hers to keep.’

‘in a shy whisper, her light eyes glimmering with unshed tears, she said words he thought he’d never hear from anyone ever again: “I love you.” He pulled back farther so he could see her remarkable eyes, always brimming with her every emotion, like a message only he could read.
“You I-“