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Endless Water, Starless Sky (Bright Smoke, Cold Fire, #2) Endless Water, Starless Sky by Rosamund Hodge
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Endless Water, Starless Sky Quotes Showing 1-13 of 13
“He got away?”

“It’s not very fair, how fast the dead can run,” ”
Rosamund Hodge, Endless Water, Starless Sky
“He’d protected another Catresou tonight. He should be proud, or at least satisfied.

But his debt would never be paid. Juliet was still enslaved to the Mahyanai. Makari was stillpretending to serve the Master Necromancer. And Paris—

A hand clapped him on the shoulder. Romeo whirled, his sword coming up.

“You know,” said Vai, “staring sadly into the darkness is a lot safer in a locked room...”

Romeo sighed and lowered his sword. “I could have hurt you,” he said.

“I mean, theoretically you couldhave,” said Vai. “You were pretty formidable that one time we dueled. But honestly, were you actually going to do anything except glare at me and think of how to complain about this in a poem?”

“I don’t write poems anymore,” Romeo muttered. That was something he’d done back when Juliet was free, and he’d thought there was a chance he could be with her.

“Probably why you’re so sad,” said Vai.”
Rosamund Hodge, Endless Water, Starless Sky
“I’ll tell you where he takes me, and you’ll follow,” Juliet went on out loud, and then looked at Vai. “Do you know about—”

“Oh, yes, we used that trick with Paris and Romeo,” said Vai.

“Romeo?” Juliet echoed.

“Right,” said Vai, “you don’t know anything. What you and Romeo did at the sepulcher? It bound him and Paris together, the same way you’re bound to that Mahyanai girl. Very convenient for using Romeo as a lookout while we broke into the Lord Catresou’s study. Less convenient when it made the pair of them act like idiots protecting each other, which was always.”
Rosamund Hodge, Endless Water, Starless Sky
“Is Romeo safe?” she asked.

“Yes, and waiting nearby,” said Vai, sauntering up beside her. “Did you have a plan for what to do next about him, or were you counting on dying first?”

“I . . . thought I would probablydie,” Juliet admitted.

Vai snorted. “Well, it’s obvious why you two belong together.”
Rosamund Hodge, Endless Water, Starless Sky
“But when he saw a narrow tendril of white fog winding between the houses near them—Paris grabbed Vai by the shoulder and hauled her back around the corner.

“You have to get inside,” he said.

Vai shook her head. “There are still people to get out. And we still have to find the Little Lady. Didn’t you hear the Mahyanai girl?”

“Yes,” said Paris. “But you’re not going to help anyone if you’re dead.” He took a shaky breath. “You should go back. I’ll keep looking, because I’m . . . I think the fog might not kill me.”

“You don’t know that,” said Vai.

“No,” said Paris. “But it’s worth a try, isn’t it?”

Vai looked at him silently, then said, “I’ve always liked your courage.”

She seized his shoulders and pressed her lips to his in a swift, warm kiss.

It lasted only a moment, but when their lips parted, she didn’t let go of his shoulders. She held on to him and gave him a smile like sunlight on swords.

“Come back alive,” she said, “and I’ll be a woman for you.”

Paris stared at her. He didn’t know how anyone could be so fearless, so alive. He didn’t know how she could stand to touch him.

“Vai,” he said. “I’m already dead.”

“And I’m already a man, but you don’t see me giving up.”

There were a thousand things he could say about how hopeless it was, how the blood was still cold and black inside his veins, how his dead heart still ached for death.

But he wasn’t entirely dead yet. And the whole world was dying around them. And in this moment, perhaps the last he’d ever speak with her, he only wanted—

He kissed her.

He kissed her and didn’t stop, because this was the only time he’d be able to touch her, the only chance he would have to learn the shape of her mouth when it was smiling into his. To feel this warmth, so bright and beautiful that it hurt.

Vai kissed him, and kissed him, and laughed as she stumbled back until she was pressed against the wall. Paris kept kissing her, but slower now, less desperately, as her body relaxed against his.

When they finally stopped, they were molded to each other, forehead to forehead, hip to hip. He could feel her swift heartbeat, her breath in his ear, and it felt like she was living and breathing for both of them.

She would have to.

He thought, I love you, but he didn’t want to say it when he had nothing to offer, nothing he could promise.

So he let go.”
Rosamund Hodge, Endless Water, Starless Sky
“You don’t have to wear the mask,” said Arajo, looking at her with concern.

“If I don’t,” said Juliet, “I’m saying that everyone in the room is my better, and deserves to rule me.”

Arajo went very still. “Is that how you felt when you came here?” she asked.

Juliet hesitated a few moments, trying to find the truth.

“Yes,” she said finally. “But at least you were all shaming yourselves along with me.”
Rosamund Hodge, Endless Water, Starless Sky
“Runajo was there barely a minute later. “A Mahyanai dress and a Catresou mask,” she said. “You will look atrocious to everyone.”

“Except Romeo,” said Juliet. “And he’s the only one I have to please.”

Runajo remained standing just inside the door. “And Lord Ineo,” she said bitterly.

Juliet grinned. “Not in bed.”

Runajo clapped a hand to her mouth, covering her laugh as if it were a sick cough.

“I thought Catresou girls were supposed to blush at these things,” she said.

“Yes,” said Juliet, “but I’m almost a married woman.”

And the memory welled up between them, so sudden and overwhelming that Juliet couldn’t tell which of them it came from: the last time that Juliet had been unashamed to speak of Romeo in her bed. When they had been prisoners in the Cloister together, and the High Priestess had given Runajo a knife and told her to sacrifice Juliet, and Juliet had believed she would.

When Runajo—

Juliet caught the thought, stopped it and the flood of bitter, hateful memories that went with it. Because Runajo had set her free. Because today was her wedding day. Because, very soon, everyone in the world would die anyway.

(She suspected that thought had sidled in from Runajo’s mind.)

She looked up at Runajo and said, “I don’t forgive you, but I am glad that I lived until today.”
Rosamund Hodge, Endless Water, Starless Sky
“AT THE END OF ALL things, there was dark, endless water and dark, starless sky.”
Rosamund Hodge, Endless Water, Starless Sky
“Last night he had whispered into her hair, Do you know how much I love you?

She had laughed as she replied, Of course I do: a little more than reason.

And you, he had asked, how much do you love me?

A little more than vengeance.”
Rosamund Hodge, Endless Water, Starless Sky
“And if we do have any problems,” Vai continued, “we can always fight a duel again. Though I suppose that’s hardly fair, since so far I always win. Unless you’ve come up with some new tactics?”

“Yes,” said Paris, and stopped her mouth with a kiss.”
Rosamund Hodge, Endless Water, Starless Sky
“I have never loved him except under sentence of death.”
Rosamund Hodge, Endless Water, Starless Sky
“But you,” Romeo asked gently, “will you be all right? I know you’re strong enough to live without me, but . . . I can’t bear to think . . .”

His voice trailed away, but she knew what he was asking. She remembered the dry, hopeless shadow that lay on her heart, in those first days when she had thought that he was dead.

She remembered darkness and despair and the infinite, lonely dust at the heart of death.

She remembered the light singing underneath.

First she kissed him, slowly and reverently: her miracle, her Romeo, who stole her name and gave it back to her.

Then she took his hands. “Journeys end in lovers meeting,” she whispered, pressing her forehead to his. “Every wise man’s son doth know.”
Rosamund Hodge, Endless Water, Starless Sky
“There is something I must tell you,” she said.

Romeo waited, his dark eyes attentive, and she loved him more than ever.

“When I bargained with Death, she said I could have you back. But there was a condition: that you would die before the hair was white on my head. She swore that no power in the world could change that fate. I brought you back anyway, but I—I thought you should know.”

“Is that all?” he asked her, after a moment.

“All?” she echoed.

He smiled faintly. “Didn’t we always know that you were stronger?”

It wasn’t a matter of strength, she wanted to tell him. And in all the ways that were not to do with swords, he was already stronger. He had loved her when she was nothing but the weapon of his enemies, and that was a grace that she never could have had.

“I’m sorry,” said Romeo. “I was selfish, and now you’re the one who has to pay, and that’s not fair.”

“It’s not fair that you’re going to die young,” she said.

He shrugged. “Keep your looks, and I could live a few decades still.”
Rosamund Hodge, Endless Water, Starless Sky