Claudie ☾’s Reviews > Game Theory > Status Update

‘What you are may terrify you, but it doesn’t scare me, Gwyn ap Nudd.’

‘You didn’t want me to cleanse you of your madness, all that time ago,’ Augus said, gently. ‘Did you? […] Even I couldn’t make you into something you weren’t. I might be good, but I’m not that good.’

Gwyn kissed with that hesitant, sweet innocence that made Augus want to dig his claws into his ribcage and pull his sternum apart, look at what lay beneath in the core of him. He wanted mess and blood and viscera, he wanted to place his tongue against the rift in Gwyn’s soul and lick.

There was an instinct there to check if Augus was okay, if he needed anything. There was a darker instinct that told him to drop to his knees. He couldn’t stand it.

‘You don’t get absolution,’ Augus pushed his lips against Gwyn’s, breathed the words against his mouth. ‘You don’t get absolution because it’s not a sin to be yourself, Gwyn.’

‘Do you want to know what I learned about you, all those years ago? I learned that you are a wild creature who tames himself for others […] but there are serious consequences, a barely restrained madness perhaps, and afterwards you’re so bewildered. You are so damaged by your reality that you need someone else to give you permission for it. Can you imagine? A wild creature, asking permission to be wild.’

"He had met all kinds of monsters in his lifetime, he was related to them, he had defeated them, he had avoided them, he had killed them. But the one he couldn’t get away from, the one that seemed to do the most damage, was himself."

Skipping right over those first ten chapters, because I love Augus too much to read those ever again

Two of my friends are (re)reading this right now, and I just can’t help myself! 🙈 Never let it be said that I’m not impressionable af 😂

Gwyn is finally home 😭💔