1
She turned to look at him, and he was already looking at her. “I’m going to miss you when I wake up, ” she whispered, because she realized that she must have fallen asleep under the sun. Arin was too real for her imagination. He was a dream.“ Don’t wake up, ” he said.Marie Rutkoski
2
She’d felt it before, she felt it now: the pull to fall in with him, to fall into him, to lose her sense of self.Marie Rutkoski
3
An emotion clamped down on her heart. It squeezed her into a terrible silence. But he said nothing after that, only her name, as if her name were not a name but a question. Or perhaps that it wasn’t how he had said it, and she was wrong, and she’d heard a question simply because the sound of him speaking her name made her wish that she were his answer.Marie Rutkoski
4
Someone was coming through the velvet. He was pulling it wide, he was stepping onto Kestrel’s balcony–close, closer still as she turned and the curtain swayed, then stopped. He pinned the velvet against frame. He held the sweep of it high, at the level of his gray eyes, which were silver in the shadows. He was here. He had come. Arin.Marie Rutkoski
5
It was wrong to want to touch a scar and call it beautiful.Marie Rutkoski
6
She had dreams that shamed her in the morning, dreams where Ronan gave her a white powdered cake, yet spoke in Arin's voice. I made this for you, he said. Do you like it? The powder was so fine that she inhaled its sweetness, but always woke before she could taste.Marie Rutkoski
7
The sky was a feather blanket of clouds, save for one blue hole in the fabric. A blue cloud in a white sky.Marie Rutkoski
8
It was different to give something up than to see it taken away. The difference, Kestrel said, was choice.Marie Rutkoski
9
Arin, you’re not listening. You’re not thinking clearly.”“ You’re right. I haven’t been thinking clearly, not for a long time. But I understand now.” Arin pushed his tiles away. His winning hand scattered out of line. “You have changed, Kestrel. I don’t know who you are anymore. And I don’t want to.Marie Rutkoski
10
Sometimes, Arin almost understood what Kestrel had done. Even now, as he felt the drift of the boat and didn't fight its pull, Arin remembered the yearning in Kestrel's face whatever she'd mentioned her father. Like a homesickness. Arin had wanted to shake it out of her. Especially during those early months when she had owned him. He had wanted to force her to see her father for what he was. He had wanted her to acknowledge what she was, how she was wrong, how she shouldn't long for her father's love. It was soacked in blood. Didn't she see that? How could she not? Once, he'd hated her for it. Then it had somehow touched him. He knew it himself. He, too, wanted what he shouldn't. He, too, felt the heart chooses its own home and refuses reason. Not here, he'd tried to say. Not this. Not mine. Never. But he had felt the same sickness. In retrospect, Kestrel's role in the taking of the eastern plains was predictable. Sometimes he damned her for currying favor with the emperor, or blamed her playing war like a game just because she could. Yet he thought he knew the truth of her reasons. She'd done it for her father. It almost made sense. At least, it did when he was near sleep and his mind was quiet, and it was harder to help what entered. Right before sleep, he came close to understanding. But he was awake now.Marie Rutkoski
11
His dear face, dear to her, dearer still. how could she love his face more for its damage? What kind of person saw someone's suffering and felt her heart crack open even wider, even more sweetly than before? There was something wrong with her. It was wrong to want to touch a scar and call it beautiful.Marie Rutkoski
12
You can't see both sides of one coin at once, can you, child? The god of money always keeps a secret. The god of money was also the god of spies.Marie Rutkoski
13
The guard hit Kestrel across the face. “I said, what did you give him?” You had a warrior’s heart, even then. Kestrel spat blood. “Nothing, ” she told the guard. She thought of her father, she thought of Arin. She told her final lie. “I gave him nothing.Marie Rutkoski
14
Her innocence was maddening. She should know. She should know what her steward had done. She should know it to be her fault whether she’d given the order or not—and whether she knew or not. Innocent? Her? Never.He did not want her to know. He did not want her to see. But:Look at me, he found himself thinking furiously at her. Look at me. She lifted her eyes, and did.Marie Rutkoski