He followed her gaze. It was a doodle, really. A curling vine with little bulging sacs, and sprigs of dark berries.
Just like the black vines.
His mouth went dry.
“When did you do this?” Anaya asked.
He said, “At least six months ago.”

“You,” it said with a sign, it‘s black eyes fixed in Aru. “You‘re the most wondrous thing I‘ve ever beheld! Refulgence incarnate! What is your name, fair bird? For I must declare that you, and only you, posses my heart.”

We talked for a few more minutes, and I asked him if he ever got to watch basketball in prison. "Sometimes," he said. "When I'm lucky."
A few more minutes after that, he had to go I didn't know when we'd get to talk on the phone again, but we agreed to keep writing letters.

“Do your thing," Yasmin said. "I'l keep searching the books. have to tell you, though I'm starting to wonder if this is a wild-goose chase. Maybe you already found everything this girl has written."
She was wrong.

“For ten years, Kiva had followed her coded orders. But for the first time ever, she had no idea how to do what she was told. Because even if she could save Tilda from her Illness, there was no way to keep her from her fate.
Her death was coming, one way or another. And there was nothing Kiva could do about it”

“I wound the garment around my body. Across my hips, a huntress and heavy-maned beast repeated in a pattern, silhouetted in ochre and crimson. The figures connected at tail and spear, so that the woman and monster blended together. Even as my eyes crossed from gazing, I could not tell which would devour the other.”

“Mr. Freeman thinks I need to find my feelings. How can I not find them? They are chewing me alive like an infestation of thoughts, shame, and mistakes. I squeeze my eyes shut. Jeans that fit, that‘s a good start.”

“Hope filled Bassem‘s heart, and his eyes refocused, his sight suddenly flooded by the sky, a simmering azure streaked with cobalt and hints of navy blue and ultramarine.” -Searching for blue

“You are already simmering secrets sweet to be savored in silence, Just you and no one else. Soft secrets like you are best kept to yourself.”

“My name is Ballister Blackheart, but I‘m sure you know that already. You may think of me as your enemy, but I have only ever fought against the Institution, not against you. Your true enemies are the ones who have beaten you down and kept you in compliance through fear. … They took away your power. It‘s time to take it back.”

“The dark cornfield up ahead seemed to be harboring all sorts of evil creatures and I imagined them whispering, “go back to the old man and stay with him. You won‘t make it through here.”

She gives Margot an apologetic look, but Margot is wary; she sees a dark satisfaction under its mute plea for forgiveness. “At di end ah di day, dis is we life. Look around yuh, gyal. Look where yuh is. Dis piece ah ground worth more than we. Yah see dis air we breathing? Is debt we owing.”

“I felt that change. I felt it coming. I sensed it with the change in the sky and the running of the stags. And I don‘t think we‘ve seen the end of it”

“Everything always makes much more sense after a cup of tea. I sip the soothing liquid and nibble on a scone as I watch the sub pierce London‘s waters, in the direction of the forest.”

“Kiran was one of those guys who thought Jaya‘s X chromosome stood for ‘xplain things to me‘”

“May our philosophies keep pace with our technologies. May our compassion keep pace with our power. And may love, not fear, be the engine of change.”

“If you are working to rid yourself of years of body shame by being Clark Kent in a phone booth, I am sorry, love, you will not come out as Superman. You are going to need someone to lean against while you pull up those tights.”

“Sam swiftly knelt down and scraped the traces of sand into the pouch Catriona had discarded. Slipping it around his neck, he hid it under his shirt. Asgard awaited...”

“They would always be there with him, where he was. Always. And wherever they were, he knew he would always be with them. Trace closed his eyes.”

“Fetid breath huffs against my cheek.
I hope it‘s a quick death.”

“I don‘t have anything to do but look at things. There are some mountains bigger than I ever saw with whites at the top which is the snow I think. There are lochs too which are big ones and black. Then it starts raining and I cannot see anything. The rain makes the bulls smell funny and I am wet.”

“In a dream, Aru could show up to school wearing a grown made out of paper clips only to be supremely embarrassed that she‘d forgotten her homework.”

“I take a bandana. The pink one. Open up the wide square. I think this: pink is the color of good. So maybe the bandana can bring some to me”