Between Sun and Shadow Quotes

“So I’ll be a monster,” I say. “But not your monster... The worst one—so I can be the last one.”
― Laura Genn, Between Sun and Shadow

“I wish it were just us. I wish there were another universe, a far-off galaxy, even just one planet where we could be together, hidden away from political conflicts and rising wars. I want to fall asleep and wake up in our own little pocket of private time, orbiting each other, spinning on the selfsame axis, our days and nights in sync until we have no more left to give.”
― Laura Genn, Between Sun and Shadow

“Is it truly so terrifying that someone could want you as you are, that you would make every attempt to become someone else entirely?”
― Laura Genn, Between Sun and Shadow

“I’ve seen what I am now if I dare to lose control. I have a civil war to quell, a kingdom to uplift, a ransom to earn.
And by the Beyond, damn it all, I want to know what her face looks like under the mask.”
― Laura Genn, Between Sun and Shadow

“Her skin is moon-luster white, but with undercurrents of blue, like an entire network of split, broken veins. It stretches like old parchment over the amalgam of enlarged muscles that she presumably calls arms or legs; the bulk is such that I can’t tell if she has only arms and no legs, or vice versa. If she wanted to, she could easily pursue an enemy on all fours, or else wield a freezeshot weapon in every one of her clawed hands. Or feet. My brain spins from trying to process. Wings, too, arch powerfully from her shoulder blades, their span broader than my height. They look like aged leather. I have the strangest urge to, if I were closer, run my fingers across the membrane, see if it feels as strong and solid as it looks.
“Better?” the monster says, sardonic.
She draws her arm back, the ball of false flame now illuminating her face. My breath catches in my throat. She looms above me, even as I rise up on my toes, her height terminating at perhaps eight feet. That arch of jawline could’ve been carved from glass, and likewise the curves of her cheeks, the solid line of her brow—her face is more bones than skin, a skeleton animated, a corpse confused at its own continued breath.”
― Laura Genn, Between Sun and Shadow

“Ferocity gathers in Adria’s voice. “I want to see the sun,” she insists.
Her speech is nearly a roar, her wings and horns a jagged, threatening sprawl, but her eyes are soft. Pleading. A girl born to a sunless world. A girl resigned to dying in it.”
― Laura Genn, Between Sun and Shadow

“Once upon a time, the captive princess offered a demon a shard of the sun.”
― Laura Genn, Between Sun and Shadow

“Adria . . . I’m not here on orders.” Thaane’s voice wavers. “I’m here as your friend.”
Your friend. There were times I suspected Thaane would’ve preferred to be more than that. But he knows full well I could never feel the same; there isn’t a man anywhere on this planet who could make my heart race, make my legs wobble, like the few female warriors in my parents’ army always have when they walked by. My heart is not attuned to men.”
― Laura Genn, Between Sun and Shadow

“I’ve been getting lectures about denying “the pull” (usually stated with her fingers curled into actual quotation marks) to boys for as long as I can remember.
The joke’s on Chloe, really—I feel the pull all the time anyway. My heart skipped when bulky gym rat Brett slid his thigh close to mine and asked if I’d ever attend “real school” and sit with him, as surely as my breath caught when Hyrra from the mechanics division demonstrated how to oil a malfunctioning mech and I couldn’t take my gaze off the deft movements of her hands. But in both instances, I promptly tripped over something (a fallen homework sheet with Brett and a discarded wire with Hyrra) and spat out a distinctly unladylike four-letter word through the pain.
No pull has a stronger hold on me than gravity. Chloe has nothing to worry about.”
― Laura Genn, Between Sun and Shadow

“Once upon a time, the planet Pagomènos stopped spinning.”
― Laura Genn, Between Sun and Shadow

“I must’ve programmed one of those historical remnant memories of a proper birthday into Aspect and then forgotten, because I don’t know how else to explain the goopy nightmare concoction resting on my floor, crudely labeled CAKE in swirly purple icing. A single wax candle sticks crookedly out of the center.
How long has it been since I cleaned Charon’s cabinets? How long has Aspect’s monstrosity been festering and melting together in there?
Why does it smell like gasoline and old shoes?”
― Laura Genn, Between Sun and Shadow