Morwen > Recent Status Updates

It helps to hate the things you fight. But it’s far better to love the things you defend.

I resolved then and there to only give Grimm spells I knew he would hate for the remainder of our partnership. I would smother him in cosmetic charms and prank cantrips. I would give him exactly what he expected of me, and nothing more.

I did it to spite him, but really, I have always been my own worst enemy.

Scrivers can’t cast. Or at least, we can’t cast anything that requires more than a thimbleful of magic. Bite your cheek. Feel the softness against your teeth as you bear down. Press to the point of skin breaking. You could keep going, but why would you? There’s a line there, between pressure and pain. No one needs to tell you where it is; you can feel it for yourself.
That’s casting a spell.

Please give me the strength to go past this lame angst-fest cause I really want to get to the part where he stops whining and we get to the story 😭

‘That’s the way to wisdom, vampire. The wise man learns more from his enemies than the fool from his friends, but even the fool can learn if his friends are willing to call him one. Surround yourself with folk who confront you. If you’re not being challenged, you’re not learning anything. If you’re the smartest man in the room, you’re in the wrong fucking room.

Those hurt will hurt in kind. Cruelty is an infection, spread from one victim to the next; an avalanche rolling ever downhill and crashing worst upon those at the bottom of the pile.

I usually prefer to despise them in ignorance before we get to the guilty angst redeeming part... 😅 😮‍💨

It kept him safe, kept him unseen and anonymous. The thought sent guilt churning in his stomach. Anonymity was a privilege the other rebels were not afforded, a privilege he was only given because, in the light of day, he held up the very laws that oppressed them.

Every day, Sebastian looks at the tea I make him, then smiles, closing his eyes. With all the recklessness of hope, he drinks the tea.

Neither Mortons nor revolutions can tolerate loose ends. Neither of us can leave the other without destroying them.

It had been the pills, and they had slipped away. Touching Sebastian, being touched by him, didn’t have the same intensity. But I woke up every morning and chose him, just as I chose not to kill the people who cut in front of me in line.

It was one thing, being separated from him in my family’s hidden room. But Helshire was the real world, where I needed real air to breathe.
His absence marked every tree, every stone.

“No purses to filch nor watch to flee here, Mlle Lachance. But though it’s a strange truth, all this ludicrous fuckaboutery can serve purpose. Silk will prove stronger than steel on the right battleground. Beauty can be a kind of weapon, and bestow a rare power. The only kind they will allow you in this place anyway. But wield it well and she will mark you.”

"Best thing about dressing as a boy is avoiding the ludicrous fuckaboutery that comes with being a girl.”

Neither of us had said the word love before. I wasn’t sure I loved him. This wasn’t what I’d felt for Hiromi. Sebastian felt more necessary— like air. I no longer made my own oxygen.

“Why did you want me? Back when I was a true Morton?”
“Because you were so certain,” he said, kissing me. “Unafraid.” He kissed me again. “You didn’t flinch. You didn’t cry.” And again. “You didn’t speak unless you had something to say.” Another, deeper, kiss.
The same sentiments as Xavier. “My certainty’s gone. Why do you still love me?”

The old Jessica hadn’t screamed because she hadn’t suffered . No heartbreak, no rage. Not even Uncle Max’s visit to the woodshed had disturbed my equanimity. But she hadn’t screamed in ecstasy either.
Now I wanted to scream all the time.

We Mortons were old hands at seduction. Evil lives close to the heart. But perhaps in imitation were the seeds of care.

Let us tell you the truth about Dior, Chastain. For while there will be some in this tale who name her Saint, the Grail of San Michon was as far from that as heaven is wide. She was no pious angel, nor selfless martyr. She was a gutter-rat. A whorechild. A girl raised on cold, hard streets with cold, hard choices. Steal or starve. Lie or die. Dior Lachance was a grifter. A thief. But above all, an opportunist.

All this time I’d felt invisible at Helshire, blending in like a good Morton. But in my own way, I’d been as renowned as Sebastian. Disconnected was not the same as unseen.

“No time to fret, I told myself. No time to fear. “When there’s little you can do, do what little you can.

‘Hold on to that fire inside you, girl. Because it makes you shine. And once it goes out, it goes out forever. Know you’ll make mistakes. Understand that it will bruise—hell, it might even break. But don’t lock it up inside your chest.’

‘Aim your heart at the fucking world.’

“HERE’S A TRUTH about sword fighting, coldblood: Even if you’re bad at it, when the person you’re fighting doesn’t have one? You’re still going to be pretty good."

“I’m afraid of my grandmother.”
“Is she mean to you?”
“No,” I said. “She loves me most of all.”

"And the smile she gave me that night was the first time she’d ever done so, and I’ve not forgotten it, not through all the blood and fire, not through all the nights from that one to this. A smile that whispered, and made me smile in kind.”
“What did it whisper?” Jean-François asked.
“That she was happy. And the sight of me had made her so."

“That girl had a thousand smiles,” he sighed. “A smile cruel as winter wind, that cut you down to shivering bone. A smile light as dove’s down, just the softest hint of it across her cheek to let you know she was listening as you spoke. A smile that could make you fear, and a smile that could make you cry, and a smile that made you feel like you were the only man alive."

“Remember this, little prodigy: whatever you’re feeling for Hiromi, it’s not about her. Those sparks in your brain aren’t because of who she is, but what she is.”
“And what’s that, auntie?”
“Prey,” she said.

“Bad men never realize when the monster is them."