Status Updates From Toți suntem malefici (All o...

The brothers found a shadowy figure alone in the sitting room, in the exact same spot she’d been when she’d presented Alistair the family’s gift. She screamed so loud the murder of crows outside the door cawed and took flight.

Alistair Lowe smiled, and the white of the Reaper’s Embrace crept a little farther up his skin. By the end of the morning, his hand was stained white with sins and red with blood.

“Are you sure that’s what you want to do?” Alistair asked. “Talk?”

Hendry took too long to answer. When Alistair turned, Hendry’s cheeks were wet. And as he moved to wipe the tears away, a red streak of high magick lagged behind his arm.

“No,” Hendry whispered.

“Then I say we don’t.”

In this story, the princess slayed the dragon.

ugh the betrayal 🔪❤️

Those were her options:

A friend who’d betrayed her when she needed her most.

Or the boy she cared about, who hadn’t wanted to be the villain in this story.

“Gavin?” a voice asked, with what Gavin guessed was genuine concern. He’d never heard it before.

His eyes opened. There was a face hovering over his own, a hand cupped around his cheek. Alistair Lowe’s widow’s peak and deep gray eyes. Alistair Lowe’s surprisingly soft palm. The fact that Gavin had found that momentarily comforting was somehow worse than the fact that he’d been on the verge of death.

Alistair changed when he told stories. His voice took on a reverent, eager quality, and his face looked more like a boy’s, a boy with wistful eyes and a wry, gentle curl to his lips. It didn’t matter that the words he spoke were frightening—Gavin could have listened to him talk like this for hours.

lowkey ship this

“Really, Grieve,” Alistair purred, his voice lingering on the last word with obvious disdain. “What could I possibly have to be afraid of?”

“I have a first name, you know.”

Alistair’s gaze dropped to the spellboard.

“You don’t know my name, do you?” Gavin demanded, humiliated. Isobel and Briony had both said it in Alistair’s earshot.

“Maybe I like calling you Grieve.”

bi king? 😏

“Seven letters,” she whispered to Alistair. “To endure.”

“Survive,” she heard him rasp. She almost thought she’d imagined it at first, but then she lifted her head and realized his eyes were open, watching her. He let out a wheezy breath, then he smiled. She realized she’d never seen Alistair smile in a way that wasn’t meant to be a threat. “Hello, rival,” he whispered.

crossword flirting🫦

In a war between logic and wickedness, his wickedness always won. And so Alistair’s free hand slid down the small of her back, pulling her closer to him.

“You want to know something funny?” he asked. “In a choice between staying here or going home, I’d still choose here. With you.”

He looked up. “What are you doing?”
“There’s only one bed,” she pointed out.
“Plenty of floor.” His voice was strangely high.
“This bed is big enough for two people.”

one bed trope>

“When we’re equal again, we can have a duel like proper rivals. The victor takes the glory, the loser dies. The sort right out of your monster stories.”
She was winning him over. Maybe because she’d peered inside his head and knew how to persuade him. Maybe her clever dark eyes were persuasion enough.
“Just remember,” he said, as much to himself as to her. “In those stories, the monster always wins.”

Would you kill me to win the tournament? Finley had asked.

Of course, she’d answered.

She hadn’t expected the hurt that crossed Finley’s face, the awful, villainous feeling that writhed in her stomach when he told her, I guess we’re not as similar as I thought.

Marianne pursed her lips impatiently. “With the sacrifice, you will be strong enough to win.”

“Where is my brother?”

His grandmother nodded at the cursering, at the stone the color of ash. “The Lamb’s Sacrifice is invincible, and an invincible curse demands an unthinkable price. This is how we always win.”

WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK!!!! HENDRY MY BABY NOOO

It was Hendry who emboldened him, even though it should’ve been his family’s lesson guiding him onward. The same lesson they were always trying to teach him.
Monsters couldn’t harm you if you were a monster, too.

Isobel Macaslan, her best friend. Finley Blair, her boyfriend. Both different kinds of exes now. Both champions, as of Finley’s announcement in the paper this morning. damn