Shades Of Magic Quotes

I'd rather die on an adventure than live standing still.

I'm not going to die," she said. "Not till I've seen it." "Seen what?" Her smile widened. "Everything.

I apologize for anything I might have done. I was not myself.” “I apologize for shooting you in the leg.” said Lila. “I was myself entirely.

Love and loss,” he said, “are like a ship and the sea. They rise together. The more we love, the more we have to lose. But the only way to avoid loss is to avoid love. And what a sad world that would be.

She bent most of the rules. She broke the rest.

For the ones who dream of stranger worlds.

Sure I do,” countered Lila cheerfully. “There’s Dull London, Kell London, Creepy London, and Dead London,” she recited, ticking them off on her fingers. “See? I’m a fast learner.

Hesitation is the death of advantage.

As Athera. To grow. As Pyrata. To burn. As Illumae. To light. As Orense. To open. As Anase. To dispel. As Hasari. To heal. As Travars. To Travel.

Scars are not shameful, not unless you let them be. If you do not wear them, they will wear you.

You know so little of war. Battles may be fought from the outside in, but wars are won from the inside out.

I gave him a smile. I was aiming for sweet, but he turned a shade paler and scooted a bit farther from me. Note to self: work more on sweet and less on psycho-killer.

Some people steal to stay alive, and some steal to feel alive. Simple as that.

She was a thief, a runaway, a pirate, a magician. She was fierce, and powerful, and terrifying. She was still a mystery. And he loved her.

Oh yes, your relationship with Miss Bard is positively ordinary." "Be quiet." "Crossing worlds, killing royals, saving cities. The marks of every good courtship.

Whatever I am, let it be enough

The bodies in my floor all trusted someone. Now I walk on them to tea.

Bad magic, Kell had called it. No, thought Lila now. Clever magic. And clever was more dangerous than bad any day of the week.

Everyone’s immortal until they’re not.

What are we drinking to?" "The living," said Rhy. "The dead," said Alucard and Lila at the same time. "We're being thorough," added Rhy.

Life isn't made of choices, it's made of trades. Some are good, some are bad, but they all have a cost.

Kell would say it was impossible. What a useless word, in a world with magic.

A life worth having is a life worth taking.

Anoshe was a word for strangers in the street, and lovers between meetings, for parents and children, friends and family. It softened the blow of leaving. Eased the strain of parting. A careful nod to the certainty of today, the mystery of tomorrow. When a friend left, with little chance of seeing home, they said anoshe. When a loved one was dying, they said anoshe. When corpses were burned, bodies given back to the earth and souls to the stream, those left grieving said anoshe. Anoshe brought solace. And hope. And the strength to let go.

But the thing about people, Kell had discovered, is that they didn't really want to know. They thought they did, but knowing only made them miserable.

Standing there on display was painful enough. Now came the truly unfortunate task of socializing.

I have never known what to make of you. Not since the day we met. And it terrifies me. You terrify me. And the idea of you walking away again, vanishing from my life, that terrifies me most of all.

He would see her again. He knew he would. Magic bent the world. Pulled it into shape. There were fixed points. Most of the time they were places. But sometimes, rarely, they were people. For someone who never stood still, Lila felt like a pin in Kell's world. One he was sure to snag on.

I know where you sleep, Bard." She smirked. "Then you know I sleep with knives.

On vis och," he told himself. Dawn to dusk. A phrase that meant two things in his native tongue. A fresh start. A good end.

Caring was a thing with claws. It sank them in, and didn’t let go. Caring hurt more than a knife to the leg, more than a few broken ribs, more than anything that bled or broke and healed again. Caring didn’t break you clean. It was a bone that didn’t set, a cut that wouldn’t close.

Look, everyone talks about the unknown like it's some big scary thing, but it's the familiar that's always bothered me. It's heavy, builds up around you like rocks, until it's walls and a ceiling and a cell.

I told you to keep him safe, not cuddle." Alucard spread his hands behind him on the sheets. "I'm more than capable of multitasking

Aren't you afraid of dying?" he asked Lila now. She looked at him as if it were a strange question. And then she shook her head. "Death comes for everyone," she said simply. "I'm not afraid of dying. But I am afraid of dying here." She swept her hand over the room, the tavern, the city. "I'd rather die on an adventure than live standing still.

Everyone thinks I have a death wish, you know? But I don't want to die - dying is easy. No, I want to live, but getting close to death is the only way to feel alive. And once you do, it makes you realize that everything you were actually doing before wasn't actually living. It was just making do. Call me crazy, but I think we do the best living when the stakes are high.

You look more ready to storm a city than seduce a man.

There were a hundred shades between a truth and lie, and she knew them all.

Death comes for us all," said Holland evenly. "I would simply have mine mean something.

Lila Bard knew in her bones that she was meant to be a pirate.

I gave him my life, but you cannot ask me to stop living.

His magic is powerful, intoxicating. I'm a butterfly caught in his net, unable and unwilling to escape. I'm his ....... totally his". (Ana to Christian)

We don't choose what we are, but we choose what we do.

Looking for trouble, he'd say. You're gonna look til you find it. Trouble is the looker, she'd answer. It keeps looking till it finds you. Might as well find it first. Why do you want to die? I don't, she'd say. I just want to live.

A low whistle behind him as Alucard appeared at the entrance. 'Picking out a gift?' asked the captain. 'No.' 'Good, then take this'. He dropped a ring into Kell's hand. Kell frowned. 'I'm flattered, but I think you're asking the wrong brother.

Time isn't the same for the mad and the blind.

Kell swept Lila up into his arms, amazed at her lightness. She took up so much space in the world—in his world—it was hard to imagine her being so slight. In his mind, she was made of stone.

Word of mouth was its own kind of magic.

A myth without a voice is like a dandelion without a breath of wind. No way to spread the seeds.

After all, if you run far enough, no one can catch you.

The prince shrugged. “Who needs magic when you look this good?

Lila Bard lived by a simple rule: if a thing was worth having, it was worth taking.

They danced in silence for several long moments, spinning together and apart, a slower version of their cadence in the ring. And then, out of nowhere, Lila asked, “Why?” “Why what?” “Why did you ask me to dance?” He almost smiled. A ghost. A trick of the light. “So you couldn’t run away again before I said hello.” “Hello,” said Lila. “Hello,” said Kell. “Where have you been?

My father was a vulture. My mother was a magpie. My oldest brother is a crow. My sister, a sparrow. I have never really been a bird." Lila resisted the urge to say he might have been a peacock. It didn't seem the time.

Don't get yourself killed." "I'll do my best," said Kell, and then he was going. "And come back," added Rhy. Kell paused. "Don't worry," he said. "I will. Once I've seen it." "Seen what?" asked Rhy. Kell smiled. "Everything.

Fix your crown, my prince," he called back as he reached the door. "It's crooked.

I am Delilah Bard, she thought, as the ropes cut into her skin. I am a thief and a pirate and a traveler. I have set foot in three different worlds, and lived. I have shed the blood of royals and held magic in my hands.

Please tell me this is easier to take off than it was to put on.” Calla raised a brow. “You do not think Master Kell knows how?

Lila smiled at that, one of those smiles that made Kell profoundly nervous. The kind of smile usually followed by a weapon.

I'm not going to die," she said. "Not till I've seen it." "Seen what?" Her smile widened. "Everything.

What a waste of life, to stand around and think so much on every little thing.

Strength and weakness are tangled things,” the Aven Essen had said. “They look so much alike, we often confuse them, the way we confuse magic and power.

In myths, the hero survives. The evil is vanquished. The world is set right. Sometimes there are celebrations, and sometimes there are funerals. The dead are buried. The living move on. Nothing changes. Everything changes. This is a myth. This is not a myth.

Don't you see?" said Calla. "He wasn't coming to pay your debt. He was coming to see if you'd returned to pay it yourself." Lila felt her face go hot. "I do not know why you two are circling each other like stars. It is not my cosmic dance. But I do know that you come asking after one another, when only a few strides and a handful of stars divide you.

And strategy is just a fancy word for a special kind of common sense, the ability to see options, to make them where there were none. It’s not about knowing the rules. It’s about knowing how to break them.

Then why are you smiling?” “Because,” she said, “bad ideas are my favorite kind.

Are you ready ?" she asked, spinning the chamber. Kell gazed through the gate at the waiting castle. "No." At that, she offered him the sharpest edge of a grin. "Good," she said. "The ones who think they're ready always end up dead.

They crashed into each other as if propelled by gravity, and he didn't know which one of them was the object and which the earth, only that they were colliding. The kiss was Lila pressed into a single gesture. Her brazen pride and her stubborn resolve, her recklessness and her daring and her hunger for freedom. It was all those things, and it took Kell's breath away.

Politics is a dance until the moment it becomes a war. And we control the music.

It doesn't matter what someone is. Only what they think they are.

Myths do not happen all at once. They do not spring forth whole into the world. They form slowly, rolled between the hands of time until their edges smooth, until the saying of the story gives enough weight to the words—to the memories—to keep them rolling on their own. But all stories start somewhere, and that night, as Rhy Maresh walked through the streets of London, a new myth was taking shape.

What are you?" she asked. "A monster," said Kell hoarsely. "You'd better let me go." The girl gave a small, mocking laugh. "Monsters don't faint in the presence of ladies." "Ladies don't dress like men and pick pockets," retorted Kell. Her smile only sharpened. "What are you really?" "Tied to your bed," said Kell matter-of-factly. "And?" His brow furrowed. "And in trouble.

Normal is an ideal. But it’s not reality. Reality is brutal, it’s beautiful, it’s every shade between black and white, and it’s magical. Yes, magical. Because every now and then, it turns nothing into something.

The world is neither fair nor right, but it has a way of balancing itself.

One day you will be old and wrinkled, and I will still love you.

Magic is tangled, so you must be smooth. Magic is wild, so you must be tame. Magic is chaos, so you must be calm. Are you calm, Kell?

I love you, Kell, but I had no interest in matching tattoos.

A queen could leave her throne. But a mother never leaves her son.

You have a house if not a home," she spat. "You have people who care for you if not about you. You may not have everything you want, but I'd wager you have everything you could ever need, and you have the audacity to claim it all forfeit because it is not love." "I--" "Love doesn't keep us from freezing to death, Kell," she continued, "or starving, or being knifed for the coins in our pocket. Love doesn't buy us anything, so be glad for what you have and who you have because you may want for things but you need nothing.

I'm sorry I left. I'm sorry. But I'm here now, so you can't die,” he said, his voice finally breaking. “Don't you see how rude that would be, when I've come so far?

How do you know when the Sarows is coming? (Is coming is coming is coming aboard) When the wind dies away but still sings in your ears, (In your ears in your head in your blood in your bones.) When the current goes still but the ship, it drifts along, (Drifts on drifts away drifts alone.) When the moon and the stars all hide from the dark, (For the dark is not empty at all at all.) (For the dark is not empty at all.) How do you know when the Sarows is coming? (Is coming is coming is coming aboard) Why you don't and you don't and you won't see it coming, (You won't see it coming at all.)

And then the door burst open. Alucard stood in the doorway, soaking wet, as if he'd just been dumped in the sea, or the sea had been dumped over him. "Stop fucking with the ship.

Delilah Bard,” she said. “We’ve met before. And you looked worse.” Rhy laughed silently. “I apologize for anything I might have done. I was not myself.” “I apologize for shooting you in the leg,” said Lila. “I was myself entirely.” Rhy broke into his perfect smile. “I like this one,” he said to Kell. “Can I borrow her?” “You can try,” said Lila, raising a brow. “But you’ll be a prince without his fingers.

And then his arms were folding around her, and in that small gesture, she understood, felt it down to her bones, that draw, not the electric pulse of power but the thing beneath it, the weight she'd never understood. In a world where everything rocked and swayed and fell away, this was solid ground. Safe.

I know it’s mad, but for a second I thought it was …” “Saints, you’re seeing her in everyone and everything now, Kell? There’s a word for that.” “Hallucination?” “Infatuation.

Kell managed an echo of her smile, and [Lila] gasped. "What's that on your face?" The smile vanished. "What?" "Never mind," she said, laughing. "It's gone.

Where did you get this?" he asked. "In a pocket in your coat," said Lila, stretching. "By the way, did you know that your coat is more than one coat? I'm pretty sure I went though five or six to find that." Kell stared at her, slack-jawed. "What?" she asked. "How did you know what it was for?" Lila shrugged. "I didn't." "What if it had been poison?" he snapped. "There's really no winning with you.

Well, the world is full of surprises. And shadow kings. And curses. Coffee?

A fine idea,” said Rhy. “But no. We must go out, you see, because we’re on a mission.” “Oh?” asked Kell. “Yes. Because unless you plan to wed me yourself—and don’t get me wrong, I think we’d make a dashing pair—I must try and find a mate.

She straightened. “You tried to seduce me, for information.” “You can’t hold that against me forever.” “It was last night.” “Well I was running out of options, and I figured it was worth a shot.” Lila rolled her eyes. “You really know how to make a girl feel special.

What brings you to my room?” he asked, relief bleeding into annoyance. “Adventure. Intrigue. Brotherly concern. Or,” continued the prince lazily, “perhaps I’m just giving your mirror something to look at besides your constant pout.” Kell frowned, and Rhy smiled. “Ah, there it is! That famous scowl.

Kell wore a very peculiar coat. It had neither one side, which would be conventional, nor two, which would be unexpected, but several, which was, of course, impossible.

Kell has only two faces. The one he wears for the world at large, and the one he wears for those he loves.” He sipped his wine. “For us.” Lila’s expression hardened. “Whatever he feels for me, it isn’t love.” “Because it isn’t soft and sweet and doting?” Rhy rocked back, stretching against the pillar. “Do you know how many times he’s nearly beat me senseless out of love? How many times I’ve done the same? I’ve seen the way he looks at those he hates …” He shook his head. “There are very few things my brother cares about, and even fewer people.

Magic made everything feel so impermanent, it was easy to forget that some things, once changed, could never be undone. That not everything was either changeable or infinite. Some roads kept going, and others had an end.

Kell wore a very peculiar coat. It had neither one side, which would be conventional, nor two, which would be unexpected, but several, which was, of course, impossible. The first thing he did whenever he stepped out of one London and into another was take off the coat and turn it inside out once or twice (or even three times) until he found the side he needed. Not all of them were fashionable, but they each served a purpose. There were ones that blended in and ones that stood out, and one that served no purpose but of which he was just particularly fond.

I'm sorry." He sounded so...earnest, which made Lila instantly suspicious. Alucard was many things, but genuine wasn't usually one of them. "For growing on me?" she asked. He shook his head. "For whatever happened to you. For whoever hurt you so deeply that you see things like friends and fondness as weapons instead of shields.

No,” he muttered, running a hand through his copper hair. “No. No. There are dozens.” “Kell?” she asked, moving to touch his arm. He shook her off. “Dozens of ships, Lila! And you had to climb aboard his.” “I’m sorry,” she shot back, bristling, “I was under the impression that I was free to do as I pleased.” “To be fair,” added Alucard, “I think she was planning to steal it and slit my throat.” “Then why didn’t you?” snarled Kell, spinning on her. “You’re always so eager to slash and stab, why couldn’t you have stabbed him?

Rhy shook his head, exasperated. “Kell isn't the only one you fail to understand. My bond with him didn't start with this curse. You wanted him to kill for me, die for me, protect me at all costs. Well, Mother, you got your wish. You simply failed to realize that that kind of love, that bond, it goes both ways. I would kill for him, and I would die for him, and I will protect him however I am able, from Faro and Vesk, from White London, and Black London, and from you.

Dream tonight of peacock tails, Diamond fields and spouter whales. Ills are many, blessings few, But dreams tonight will shelter you. Let the vampire's creaking wing Hide the stars while banshees sing; Let the ghouls gorge all night long; Dreams will keep you safe and strong. Skeletons with poison teeth, Risen from the world beneath, Ogre, troll, and loup-garou, Bloody wraith who looks like you, Shadow on the window shade, Harpies in a midnight raid, Goblins seeking tender prey, Dreams will chase them all away. Dreams are like a magic cloak Woven by the fairy folk, Covering from top to toe, Keeping you from winds and woe. And should the Angel come this night To fetch your soul away from light, Cross yourself, and face the wall: Dreams will help you not at all.

Some thought magic came from the mind, others the soul, or the heart, or the will. But Kell knew it came from the blood. Blood was magic made manifest. There it thrived. And there it poisoned. Kell had seen what happened when power warred with the body, watched it darken in the veins of corrupted men, turning their blood from crimson to black. If red was the color of magic in balance—of harmony between power and humanity—then black was the color of magic without balance, without order, without restraint. As an Antari, Kell was made of both, balance and chaos; the blood in his veins, like the Isle of Red London, ran a shimmering, healthy crimson, while his right eye was the color of spilled ink, a glistening black.

Arnesians had a dozen ways to say hello, but no word for good-bye. When it came to parting ways, they sometimes said vas ir, which meant in peace, but more often they chose to say anoshe–until another day. Anoshe was a word for strangers in the street, and lovers between meetings, for parents and children, friends and family. It softened the blow of leaving. Eased the strain of parting. A careful nod to the certainty of today, the mystery of tomorrow. When a friend left, with little chance of seeing home, they said anoshe. When a loved one was dying, they said anoshe. When corpses were burned, bodies given back to the earth and souls to the stream, those grieving said anoshe. Anoshe brought solace. And hope. And the strength to let go.