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Kissing Grayson Hawthorne felt like stepping out of time. Nothing else existed. Not the ground beneath Lyra's feet. Not the ruins or the cliffs. Just this. Every place their bodies touched. His lips and hers. A jagged breath—this.
The right kind of disaster just waiting to happen, Odette's voice whispered in Lyra's memory. A Hawthorne and a girl who has every reason to stay away from Hawthornes.

Ophelia elbowed Salem in the side now, bringing Genevieve's attention back to the present.
"Behave," Ophie chastised Salem as he gave Rowin a smug look.
Salem huffed a laugh. "And here I thought you preferred it when I misbehaved, angel."
Ophelia sighed heavily as she flicked her eyes over to Rowin and Grave. "You'll have to excuse him. Devils cannot be taught manners."

"[…] I’d much rather spend a single lifetime in your light. Or, at least, for however long you'll have me. I want you to know, I really would have waited for you, right here, forever if that's what it would have taken. I would have stood in this spot until I could no longer distinguish my own soul from the shadows. Until your light came back to me."

Sinclair?

ROWINNNNNNNNNNNNNNN

[…]. But I will never stop searching for a way to get them back for you. I will search for the rest of my eternity if I must, because it belongs to you already. I pledge it to you in my vows.
I understand if you do not feel the same. If you need to move on with your life. Our vows may have said "eternally," but as I told you then, nothing is ever truly eternal.
Except my longing for you. (2)

It is a cruel thing. To be looked on as a stranger by the one who knows you best. It is cruel that I was given a taste of what my eternity could have been filled with—your smile, your pleasure, your humor—only to have it ripped away from me in seconds.
It is cruel that if your memories never come back that it would only be fair to let you go.
The problem is, Genevieve, that I can't.
That I never will. (1)

okay… this is making me like Rowin better than before

She knew how easy it would be for him to take every shortcut at any given opportunity, to will whatever he or her sister wanted into existence with just a single thought. But taking the extra time to do even the simplest of things, especially when they might be unpleasant, was how he loved Ophelia.

Genevieve snorted. "Couldn't you just snap your fingers and
make them disappear? Instead of suffering."
Salem fixed her with an intense look. "I will suffer a million times over if it makes your sister happy. Which means I will eat a million pieces of this Hellish candy." A pause. "Or I'll just burn down the store. I'm still deciding." (2)

"Ophelia likes the red pieces, but they only come mixed with the black ones, from that candy store on Chartres Street. She always gets excited at the fact that we can split a bag, because she eats all the red ones and I eat all the black."
"Except you clearly hate them," Genevieve reasoned.
"Something neither of us will ever tell her," he said pointedly as he popped another one into his mouth. "Understood?" (1)

but anyways, I DID NOT EXPECT THIS

UGH. SALEM IS REALLY JUST POWERFUL EVEN BY NAME.

WHY 👹👹👹👹👹👹👹👹👹👹👹

“Shadows can only be seen in the presence of light,” he told her, the words agonised. “I worry when you leave, there will be no one left to see me.”

“Then maybe I was made for you. How else have you managed to get so deep under my skin in such a short amount of time? Why is it that every time I try to imagine what it would be like to sever our vows, I feel like the Hunting Blade is piercing my heart? Fifteen years I’ve lived for everyone else around me. I’ve withered away in this damned place. Until you showed up and yo made me laugh. You gave me hope.”

He shook his head. “Nothing is eternal. Except for the fact that you’ve ruined me. All I’ve ever wanted was freedom from this wretched game, and I didn’t even hesitate for a second to give it up.”

"Are you not afraid of breaking your heart so much you won't be able to put it back together? If you fall in and out of love so easy?" she wondered.
"If there's no risk in life, I don't think it's worth the journey," he told her.

"Everything is real," Sevin said. "Heightened, sure, but just because the Hunt is life or death doesn't mean your decision on how you feel about each other afterward has to be. Let yourself fall in love. Let yourself fall out of it. You never know when you could lose someone and not have the opportunity to do so again. Believe me."

Genevieve bit her lip. “Do you think is possible to love someone after only a few days?"
“We're certainly capable of hating someone in a short period of time—on sight, even. I don't see why love should be any dif ferent," Sevin told her. "But I'm atraid I don't feel that way about you, sweetheart. You're not my type.”

"[…]. I don't know who told you that you weren't good enough, but they were fucking wrong. You're more than good enough. Your heart is more than good enough. No matter how many times it has been burned. How many scars it might have. It will keep on beating, brave and passionate, if you will only let it."

[…]. "But you and T have made our own choices. No matter what they're saying, or wagering on, or voting on, we have chosen our path here. I cannot imagine how hard this has been for you. How exhausting it probably is thinking you finally have a handle on your emotions, only for the game to turn everything on its head an hour later. And I know a lot of that is my fault. But you're not alone"

"I am not him," Rowin snarled. "I want to find him and flay all the flesh from his body and set him on fire for what he did to you. Don't ever compare me to him."

“I’ve always been right about you, you know. You’re going to be nothing but trouble for me.”

first, it was Salem and his phantom powers,, now, it’s Rowin and his shadows… what’s next ? 🫣

Over the next few hours, Genevieve made enough flower crowns for a small army. […] Though definitely more pleased than Rowin, who was now wearing the strings of flowers atop his head, around his neck, and on each of his wrists. The soft pastel petals were so at odds lying against his tattooed skin, yet it somehow only enhanced his allure to her.

"She's mine," Rowin snarled, his shadows beginning to swirl in the air around him. "Whatever you might think of that, whatever problem you have with it, if you ever try to touch her again, I will make the rest of your eternal life even more fucking miserable than it already is.”

UGH. 😩 I JUST LOVE HOW EVEN JUST SALEM’S NAME IS SO POWERFUL. 😍