Alec Entry #17

Stormbird won’t talk to me again.

She looked at me like I was something filthy this morning—like I’d said something unforgivable. I didn’t. Not this time. I kept my mouth shut. I didn’t flirt. I didn’t push. I just handed her the damned bread and nodded like some obedient guard dog. She still flinched.

And I’m supposed to believe she’s just a girl running from soldiers?

No. There’s something inside her. Something dark, dangerous—and maybe divine. I’ve seen the way the air shifts when she’s angry. The way shadows crawl too close to her skin. The way her eyes go all empty, like she’s not the one behind them anymore.

And still—still—I want to be near her. Gods help me, I do.

She’s wild and angry and full of thorns, but she’s not hollow. Even when she’s snarling at me, she’s alive.

She doesn’t trust me. I don’t blame her. She’s right not to.

I was sent to find her. To deliver her like some prize to my mother.

But I can’t do it.

Not anymore.

I think she’d burn the whole world to keep from being used again. And the worst part? A part of me wants to hand her the match.

~ Alec

Aria Entry #27

I can’t keep losing control.

The Hollow Twin came again last night. I felt her waking before I even fell asleep—like a pressure under my skin, like the air turned to teeth. She laughed when he looked at me like I was something precious. She always laughs when he looks at me like that.

He doesn’t know what I am. Not really.

He thinks he does—thinks I’m just some girl with secrets and bite. He doesn’t know what I could become if I let go. If I stopped trying to be good.

He’d run. He should run.

And still, he stays.

He’s infuriating. Smirking one moment, silent the next. He watches me like he’s memorizing everything I hate about him—and then softens like he doesn’t hate me back. And I don’t understand it. I don’t understand him.

I don’t want to want him.

But sometimes I do.

And that’s the most dangerous truth of all.

—A.