FIND ME AT @EXEUNTOMNES

“Are you afraid of dying? Holland had asked him in the alley.  And Kell was. Had always been, ever since he could remember. He feared not living, feared ceasing to exist. Lila’s world may believe in Heaven and Hell, but his believed in dust. He was taught early that magic reclaimed magic, and earth reclaimed earth, the two dividing when the body died, the person they had combined to be simply forfeit, lost.  Nothing lasted. Nothing remained.”

“But all stories start somewhere, and that night, as Rhy Maresh walked through the streets of London, a new myth was taking shape.”

She wanted more. Wanted an adventure. She used to think that if she stole enough, the want would fade, the hunger would go away, but maybe it wasn’t that simple. Maybe it wasn’t a matter of what she didn’t have, of what she wasn’t, but what she was.

Delilah Bard—always a thief, recently a magician, and one day, hopefully, a pirate—was running as fast as she could.

“Death comes for everyone,” she said simply. “I’m not afraid of dying. But I am afraid of dying here.” She swept her hand over the room, the tavern, the city. “I’d rather die on an adventure than live standing still.”

Kell would say it was impossible. What a useless word, in a world with magic.

“They stood like that for a long moment while Alucard and Holland walked among the dead, freeing Lila’s knives from chests and legs and throats.”

SCHWAB WEEK [DAY 2] » FAVORITE CHARACTER: DELILAH BARD (A DARKER SHADE OF MAGIC)

Lila Bard was a force to be reckoned with. Whether her hands were filled with knives or fire, her voice low and coaxing or lined with steel, she seemed to hold the world in her hands. Maybe she did. After all, she’d already taken two Londons as her own. She was a thief, a runaway, a pirate, a magician. She was fierce, and powerful, and terrifying. She was still a mystery. 

“Who needs magic when you look this good.”

“There’s Dull London, Kell London, Creepy London, and Dead London,” she recited, ticking them off on her fingers. “See? I’m a fast learner.” 

‘If you only let us in.’

Lila Bard was a force to be reckoned with. Whether her hands were filled with knives or fire, her voice low and coaxing or lined with steel, she seemed to hold the world in her hands. Maybe she did. 

As an Antari, Kell was made of both, balance and chaos; the blood in his veins, like the Isle of Red London, ran a shimmering, healthy crimson, while his right eye was the color of spilled ink, a glistening black.