So.” [Isobel] cleared her throat. “What are we doing?””We,” [Varen] said at last, “are doing a project on Poe.””Didn’t he marry his cousin or something?””The man is a literary god and that’s all you have to say?
Isobel moved farther into the kitchen, not knowing whether to be relieved that her mother hadn’t had an atomic meltdown, or mortified that she’d taken it upon herself to play head chef with the nearest thing Trenton High had to a Dark Lord.
Not anymore, though,” he said. “And I guess that’s the one perk of loving a dead girl. She never changes.
Isobel had entrusted the note to Gwen just before Baltimore. And the small scrap of paper still remained her only tangible evidence that Varen had loved her.Expect…he didn’t anymore.
You yourself could be nothing more than a shadow, someone else’s dream who is, themselves, someone else’s.
The more this guy talked, the more he sounded like a fortune cookie.
Her fingertips reached to trace the damage, but he grasped her hand with his own. He leaned down, far enough that the dark ends of his hair brushed feather-light against her face, caught in her lashes.
Lady Ligeia,” he began again, “is a woman in the literature who returns from the dead, taking over another woman’s body to be with her true love.””Oh, yes. Lovely” Isobel blanched. “I guess the other chick didn’t mind at all?
She never answered. She couldn’t. All she could do was stare, reaching toward him with her gaze alone, pulling him to drown in the sorrow of those depthless black pools.
Side by side we’ll fight the tide,That sweeps in to take us down.Hand in hand we’ll both withstand,Even as we drown.
He hated himself,” Gwen said. “You just got caught in the cross fire.
Demons… they don’t just waltz into your life and take over for no reason,” she said, her voice going soft again. “They might knock on the door, but ultimately, you have to be the one to invite them in.
Painted faces laughed. It was like a mad carnival where everyone was oblivious, lost in the bliss of chaos, a throng unaware of a bomb planted beneath thefloorboards.
Just because I wear black and keep a private journal, that doesn’t mean I’m going to blow up the school. Or terrorize mindless cheerleaders, for that matter.