Queen of Air and Darkness (The Dark Artifices #3)

Some lights were never meant to burn for long.

Love flashes out like fire, the brightest kind of flame Many waters cannot quench love, nor can the floods drown it

Mark gave him a long look. “You were very young when we lost Eleanor, your mother,” he said. “She told me once there is a clock in the hearts of parents. Most of the time it is silent, but you can hear it ticking when your child is not with you and you do not know where they are, or when they are awake in the night and wanting you. It will tick until you are with them again.”

Her strong enchantments failing,

Her towers of fear in wreck,

Her limbecks dried of poisons

And the knife at her neck,

The Queen of air and darkness

Begins to shrill and cry,

“O young man, O my slayer,

Tomorrow you shall die.”

O Queen of air and darkness,

I think ’tis truth you say,

And I shall die tomorrow;

But you will die today.

—A. E. Housman, “Her Strong Enchantments Failing”

Watch over Tiberius.

Kit was doing just that. Or at least he was staring at Ty, which seemed close enough

“Ah, Watson,” said Ty, shoving the clip into his pocket. “You may not yourself be luminous, but you are an extraordinary conductor of light.”

She remembered the first love note Aline had ever written her. The world is changed because you are made of ivory and gold. The curves of your lips rewrite history. Later, she’d found out it was an Oscar Wilde quote, and had said to Aline, smiling, You’ve got a lot of nerve.

“I’m here on my own account,” Magnus said, in a low and distant voice. “I need your help. There is absolutely no one else that I can ask.”

“That’s not what I . . .” Julian pushed sopping-wet hair out of his eyes, his voice trailing off in realization. “You’re remembering someone.”

Magnus seemed to shake himself a little, like a dog emerging from the sea. “Another night, a different boy with blue eyes. Wet weather in London, but when was it anything else?”

I keep telling myself I’m going to avoid wars and battles in the future,” said Magnus. “Somehow they keep coming to me. It must be something about my face

I always wanted someone to hiss ‘you’ at me,” she said. “Makes me feel like I’m in a movie