B. A Torch Against the Night

A Torch Against the Night

Highlights

pent — location: 153

pock — location: 161

caricature — location: 182

viridescence. — location: 188

diminutive — location: 252

belies — location: 252

tumult — location: 283

When the fear takes over, use the only thing more powerful, more indestructible, to fight it: your spirit. Your heart. — location: 298

kiln — location: 353

placid. — location: 476

quash — location: 495

confer. — location: 508

ignoble — location: 579

servile — location: 579

canter. — location: 592

The words liberate me. Perhaps I have become so accustomed to the burden of secrets that I do not notice its weight until I am free of it. — location: 624

apothecaries? — location: 677

jouncing — location: 735

anathema — location: 784

unmottled — location: 805

ambling — location: 828

“Enough.” Better she think me impatient than too soft. I cannot show her the wounded parts of me. I cannot show anyone those parts. Not when my strength is the only thing that will serve me now. — location: 834

Quell — location: 836

quip — location: 845

dissent.” — location: 862

bereft. — location: 957

umbrage — location: 973

askance — location: 981

riven — location: 996

acrid — location: 1012

thoroughfare, — location: 1026

pestle — location: 1027

corsairs, — location: 1032

oud. — location: 1124

blanched. — location: 1196

veneration — location: 1267

chagrined — location: 1282

“This is what it means to have faith, to believe in something greater than yourself.” A sigh escapes me, and I wipe the tears from my face. This is what it means to believe. I wish it weren’t so hard. — location: 1292

Shrike, — location: 1310

ashen. — location: 1317

stoically, — location: 1328

stint — location: 1340

Most successful missions are just a series of barely averted disasters.” — location: 1389

Pop used to say that standing by someone during their darkest times creates a bond. A sense of obligation that is less a weight and more a gift. — location: 1398

A forced march in bone-numbing sleet simplifies life. — location: 1403

devoid — location: 1466

berth — location: 1498

niveous — location: 1556

“Sequestered — location: 1659

ensconce — location: 1660

striated — location: 1735

dole — location: 1774

unguent — location: 1838

cordon — location: 1849

cordon — location: 1858

mote — location: 1873

mussed — location: 1912

circuitous — location: 1927

insouciant — location: 1946

perfunctorily, — location: 1954

brocade — location: 1959

foisting — location: 2043

divans, — location: 2058

pandemonium, — location: 2326

assuage — location: 2359

Few people want witnesses to their pain, and grief is the worst pain of all. — location: 2361

cardamom. — location: 2419

ouds. — location: 2437

bracers — location: 2447

demure — location: 2450

trite — location: 2454

petulant — location: 2592

missives. — location: 2600

surreptitiously. — location: 2628

reconnaissance. — location: 2640

derision — location: 2665

divesting — location: 2670

consummate — location: 2677

“Elias sees people as they should be,” I say. “Not as they are. He laughs at himself. He gives of himself—in everything he does. — location: 2707

soughing — location: 2754

stygian — location: 2819

crenellated — location: 2851

conflagration. — location: 2890

chivvies — location: 2941

paunch. — location: 3027

brays. — location: 3029

winsome, — location: 3036

regalia, — location: 3064

slake — location: 3086

swathed — location: 3251

dolt,” — location: 3284

stalactites — location: 3399

“Most people,” Cain says, “are nothing but glimmers in the great darkness of time. But you, Helene Aquilla, are no swift-burning spark. You are a torch against the night—if you dare to let yourself burn.” — location: 3424

sigils — location: 3437

manacle — location: 3522

lamprey. — location: 3674

“Don’t lock yourself away from those who care about you because you think you’ll hurt them or—or they’ll hurt you. What point is there in being human if you don’t let yourself feel anything?” — location: 3723

True suffering lies in the expectation of pain as much as in the pain itself.” — location: 3772

“To find an hour or two of bliss in such dark times?” Keenan says. “That’s not wrong. What is there to live for if not the moments of joy? What is there to fight for?” — location: 3847

fallow — location: 3865

“I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” I whisper. “I feel like—like I can’t find an equilibrium.” “You’ve been carrying too much weight for too long. All this time, Laia, you’ve led, you’ve made difficult decisions—and perhaps you weren’t ready to. There’s no shame in that, and I’ll gut anyone who tells me different. You did the best you could. But let go now. Let me carry that weight for you. Let me help you. Trust that I’ll do the right thing. Have I steered you wrong yet?” — location: 3869

offal. — location: 3878

solicitous — location: 3925

conflagration. — location: 3937

flotsam — location: 3941

eaves, — location: 4094

gelid, — location: 4139

protestations. — location: 4294

friezes — location: 4323

rankle — location: 4344

foment — location: 4350

gloaming — location: 4495

atavistic — location: 4544

evanesced — location: 4649

abscond — location: 4718

quandary — location: 4722

Perhaps grief is like battle: After experiencing enough of it, your body’s instincts take over. When you see it closing in like a Martial death squad, you harden your insides. You prepare for the agony of a shredded heart. And when it hits, it hurts, but not as badly, because you have locked away your weakness, and all that’s left is anger and strength. — location: 4750

nonplussed. — location: 4782

interminable — location: 4837

Failure doesn’t define you. It’s what you do after you fail that determines whether you are a leader or a waste of perfectly good air.” — location: 4846

It takes only a split second for life to go horribly wrong. To fix the mess, I need a thousand things to go right. The distance from one bit of luck to the next feels as great as the distance across oceans. But, I decide in this moment, I will bridge that distance, again and again, until I win. I will not fail. — location: 4849

peal — location: 4855

“Because sane plans never work, girl,” she says. “Only the mad ones do.” — location: 4858

coiffure — location: 5235

wrested — location: 5468

incredulity — location: 5521