addie larue bot

And there isn’t enough time, and he knows of course that there will never be. That time always ends a second before you’re ready. That life is the minutes you want minus one.

Luc’s brows draw up. “Don’t you trust me?” “I never have,” she says. “There’s no use starting now.”

That is the madness of it. Every day is amber, and she is the fly trapped inside. No way to think in days or weeks when she lives in moments. Time begins to lose its meaning—and yet, she has not lost track of time.

Three hundred years she’s tested the confines of her deal, found the places where it gives, the subtle bend and flex around the bars, but never a way out. And yet. Somehow, impossibly, Henry has found a way in. Somehow, he remembers her.

And she is lonely, and a little drunk, and she wonders if tonight will be the night she breaks. It would be a fall, but it is not so great a height. Perhaps—perhaps— To occupy her hands, she decides to get another drink.

Freedom is a pair of trousers and a buttoned coat. A man’s tunic and a tricorne hat. If only she had known. The darkness claimed he’d given her freedom, but really, there is no such thing for a woman

Addie has said so many hellos, but that was the first and only time she got to say good-bye. That kiss, like a piece of long-awaited punctuation.

Addie grins at the shadow then, a small, feral smile, all teeth, feasting on the way the humor falls from his face. It is a small victory, and yet so sweet, to see him falter, even for an instant.

“Do not sulk, simply because you chose poorly.” “Did I though?” she counters. “After all, I am free.” “And forgotten.” But she is ready for the barb. “Most things are.”

It is so much easier to share a secret than to keep one, and when they stepped outside again, hand in hand, they were conspirators, made giddy by their private knowledge.

His heart has a draft. It lets in light. It lets in storms. It lets in everything.

Perhaps she is lonelier than she would say. Perhaps an enemy’s company is still better than none.

The three of them, napping in the sun. Addie, stroking Henry’s hair while she tells him stories, and he writes, and writes, and writes.

”A shop full of antique books, and you steal a battered paperback of The Odyssey? You know this won’t fetch anything, right?” Addie holds his gaze. “Who says I wanted to resell it?” “It’s also in Greek.”

The old gods may be great, but they are neither kind nor merciful

Adeline is three and twenty, already too old to wed. Three and twenty, a third of a life already buried.

Blink and you’re twenty-eight, and everyone else is now a mile down the road, and you’re still trying to find it, and the irony is hardly lost on you that in wanting to live, to learn, to find yourself, you’ve gotten lost.

There have been times, of course, when she wished her memory more fickle, when she would have given anything to welcome madness, and disappear. It is the kinder road, to lose yourself.

Adeline is three and twenty, already too old to wed. Three and twenty, a third of a life already buried.

And when she looks up into his eyes, she sees a new shade of green, and knows exactly what it is. The color of a man off-balance. His chest rises and falls as if it were a human thing. Here is a place to put the knife. “I would rather be a ghost.”

Henry smiles. “Addie,” he whispers against her throat. “Addie.” The kisses trail over her collar. “Addie.” Her stomach. “Addie.” Her hips.