Leigh Bardugo

“They fear you as I once feared you,” he said. “As you once feared me. We are all someone’s monster, Nina.”

There’s no time to constantly be apologizing for existing. But when someone does wrong, when we make mistakes, we don’t say we’re sorry. We promise to make amends.

I had missed him so terribly, but I had never really believed that Mal might be missing me just as much.

plucked from the rubble of distant towns

In the army, he’d carved out a real place for himself where no one needed to know that he’d once been an unwanted little boy.

“Is Dubrov buying?”
“Just you and me,” Mal said.
“Really?”
“It’s always just you and me, Alina.”
For a moment, it seemed like it was true. The world was this step, this circle of lamplight, the two of us suspended in the dark.

At first, it was like drifting into a thick cloud of smoke, but there was no heat, no smell of fire. Sounds seemed to dampen and the world became still

. Its muscled flesh felt slimy beneath my hands. It screeched and thrashed free of my grip, and I fell backward, hitting the deck hard. It lunged at me in a frenzy of rage, its huge jaws snapping

For a moment, all my fear disappeared, eclipsed by the beauty that surrounded me. The tent’s inner walls were draped with cascades of bronze silk that caught the glimmering candlelight from chandeliers sparkling high above. The floors were covered in rich rugs and furs. Along the walls, shimmering silken partitions separated compartments where Grisha clustered in their vibrant kefta.

chest. In front of the black pavilion, a few richly attired ministers wearing the King’s double eagle and a group of Corporalki clustered around a long table spread with maps. At the head of the table was an ornately carved, high-backed chair of blackest ebony, and upon it lounged a figure in a black kefta, his chin resting on one pale hand. Only one Grisha wore black, was permitted to wear black.