Kai would leave. He’d see the stars. And Elliott would remain, and work the farm, and silence any voice in her heart that screamed for more.

Unicorns are man-eating monsters. They don’t have wings, they aren’t lavender or sparkly, and you could never catch one to ride without its goring you through the sternum. And even if it somehow managed to miss your major arteries-and it never misses-you’d still die from the deadly poison in its horn.

They stared at each other and then, at last, Kai closed his eyes and nodded his head, just once. The estates would always win.

How did anyone see the stars and not wish for more than the confinement they were born to?

I was afraid I sounded a bit comical with all my threats. As if I needed a mustache to twirl like some sort of ancient villain.

Because I know from experience that sometimes it’s only the young ones who are crazy enough to change the world.

She still loved the man who called himself Malakai Wentforth. She knew that. But that didn’t matter, just as it hadn’t mattered four years ago. Then, she’d chosen to stay behind. But it didn’t mean she wasn’t curious. It didn’t mean she didn’t want to stand at the edge of the cliffs and stretch her face out toward the sea, toward a world she’d never be allowed to know.

Day by day, the superficial mask she’d donned chafed more and more; and no matter how many disguises Persis took on as the Poppy, she couldn’t help but feel they fit her better than the one she wore at home.

It’s the underlying inequality. Someone is always the one who loves more, and it eventually drives the other – the less loving one – away. Just the pressure of it.

The tiniest of earthquakes seemed to rustle through him, the kind that shakes petals off flowers, as Justen became aware of the gulf between what he was supposed to feel for Persis Blake and what he actually did.