Sarah Mac’s Reviews > Innamorata > Status Update

‘Maleagant saw untold terrors. She saw the red spurt of blood alongside the white streaking of seed. She saw the cruel flash of a blade in the dark. She saw that much & more. Yet she did not speak. Perhaps it was fear. Perhaps it was something bitterer & deeper, a grudge that had hardened within her, grown thick & rough with time.’ ….I’m so afraid of how this book will end, lol. 🫣

‘The urge to laugh was gone, but it had been replaced by another equally brazen sentiment. Love, which was more dangerous than the sharpest blade & sweeter than the last fig on a branch. “Let me taste it,” Agnes thought. “Let me cut myself on it. I do not care.”’

‘It could not be the castle itself, the castle built upon the blood of those struck down by Berengar’s needle-thin blade. Rather it was something that existed w/in these cruel walls, a strange flower that bloomed despite the dark & the frigid air—a night-blooming flower, perhaps, that opened its petals only beneath the obscurity of the black sky. Could such a thing be born here? Something so fleshy, so full?’

“Who would wish for this—for love that burns only in the dark?”

‘His need pulsed from within him, like a second heartbeat. Agnes could feel it, thudding through her, heating her blood & the very marrow of her bones. She was made a hollow drum, his desire beating against her taut skin.’

‘The taste of him was salt & skin, & apostasy. Whatever obedience, whatever duty was left within Agnes fell away from her, crumbled, as a pedestal beneath a statue that had become too fragile to shoulder the weight of its idol.’

‘It was a lucent feeling, softly bright, like morning dew on a daffodil. It was an emotion so foreign to Agnes that her mind stammered & tripped over the word. It was the opposite of hunger, the yawning pit in her stomach, the scraping of bone against bone. There could be no such harsh ugliness when this other emotion existed w/in her, all around her. This thing of nascent, glowing beauty, this hope.’

‘Waltrude saw the lady Agnes as the prince did. She did not see a walking corpse, a ghost in a grayish gown. She saw a vivid creature, all the intricate faculties of life occurring with great subtlety beneath the surface, as roots writhe & swell underground before at last showing themselves green & tender in the dirt.’

‘The moth crawled up onto Agnes’ outstretched fingers. Its wings were dappled black & white, like the bark on a birch tree. The moth then ascended her arm & perched on her shoulder. An unexpected yearning filled her—filled her in a manner that reminded her so bitterly of her own emptiness. Speckling, she remembered, as the creature nuzzled its head against her neck, was for an apology.’ ….The feels. 😢

‘What an odd creature Agnes was, closer to the dead than to the living. But Mordaunt quickly amended this thought. It was not as if she had lived & then perished; it was more as though she had not lived at all. A preexistent being. A cold flower that had never bloomed.’