The Choice Quotes
"I helped, sure. But you take on more than anybody, and you take it on here." He tapped his heart.
"I helped," he repeated, "but you take on more than anybody, and you take it on here." He tapped his heart.
"Odran did this, all this, to get to me. Not my fault," she said before he could speak. "Not mine, not my father’s, my mother’s, Nan’s. It’s all his. But that doesn’t change the fact so many are dead because Odran wants me, what I am, what I have."
"I went to Ninia Colconnan’s shop yesterday and got you a scrying mirror."
"It’s a way to talk to you. Plus, it’s pretty. Consider it a kind of Zoom call. I’ll show you how it works."
"Do you think the only reason I want you here is worry for you?"
"It’s a factor, but I’m also useful here, and you know it."
"I’m not ready for comfort." She studied him, this man, this witch, this warrior she’d come to love, to want, to need almost more than she could stand.
"I know where you came from, but I often wonder what turn of the path sent you to me."
"It’s not ready yet. Not a challenge, since you already are."
"I know it’s superstition. But I don’t want to take something so dark around her when she’s so close to the birthing."
"A living death, one filled with pain, so Odran can drink her dry. The pain? That’s Yseult’s revenge."
"I’m for my own cottage, for Sedric, who waits for me, and a whiskey by the fire. I want my man tonight, the comfort of him, and the goodness."
"The stone circle sang a welcoming on the high hill, and below the rise, fire roared."
"In the way of women well used to the task, they dealt with platters, bowls, plates, pots, and skillets."
"I ask to do the second because we’ll be gathered, we’ll have called on the powers and hold them and only be stronger for it."
"Blood’s life. It’s always about the blood, has to be blood and all like that."
"It’s not altogether like that. Not with laws and judgments and all of it, as it’s a thing personal, intimate, and of the heart."
"We see that differently. I will say Mahon had it right. You handled the Were well enough."
"I’m sorry for them, and will hope one day the locks on their hearts break open."
"I’d go anywhere with Marco. That it can be here is another gift."
"The Fey are peaceful, generous, joyful. I know that because I feel it in me. I’m part of it."
"We’ll find others. It’s odd for me, I find, to have walked and talked and not be annoyed with the talking."
"Now we share blood. Witness this, all of ya! The Daughter of the O’Ceallaigh shares blood with the tribe. She is one of us from this day."
"Wear it into battle, see? It’s protection, and a warning, a warning the one who wears it is fierce with the blood of the Trolls though she has no braid."
"We’re sisters now, so when ya fight, fight fierce. When ya stand, stand strong."
"I’ll treasure the gift and wear it with pride. Troll pride."
"I’m hoping not many. You said the raven came through the portal."
"Misneach, he thought. It meant both courage and spirit. She had both."
"If we close them, a raven can’t get through, and we can’t follow as Duncan did today."
"This choice runs out as the grains of sand run out."
"No one without wings," Brian clarified. "Can you?"
"I know we have to wake up. But I’d rather not."
"I’d rather take the air with a dragon under me, or stand on the solid ground."
"I’ll tell you after I convince her to let me read what you read."
"I can hear you just like I could in the other, but its—scope’s the word, right?—its scope is so wide and, like, rich."
"She'd done the very best she could, and told herself to put it aside, put it away."
"Talamh and all the worlds are grateful for your vigilance."
"But I do know it takes a lot of effort to put those cracks in the portals."
"If you find you can make this crack, the size, you said, of your own fist, in time, with purpose, with blood magicks, you’d work on a way to make a bigger one, and bigger yet."
"I don’t understand strategies or tactics when it comes to war and battles."
"Wouldn’t one, even two be enough? It may take longer for the bird to get where it’s going and back, but it would get there."
"Please accept it, Breen. It would make me so proud to see you wear what I helped make."
"He revels in the suffering, preening as so many still take the knee for him."
"We’ll train there, and when not training, lend the hands."
"A farmer has a field resting, fallow for the season. Ah well, we’ll make use of it."
"It’s a dog for ye, isn’t it then? A water spaniel. That’s what I hear."
"The woman you have at the center of it, or it seems to me she’s the center of it. She’s not you."
"You’ll use the portal in New York to come back."
"I don’t know if she was the first he cannibalized, but I doubt she was the last."
"It’s a generous thing to share your talent for cooking with others."
"We’ve biscuits aplenty after yesterday’s baking."
"Do you pack stones to take back for souvenirs?"
"I wouldn’t mind that. They’re rare but ferocious."
"I’ll kill you!" In her rage, in her pain, Shana struck out at the young girl.
"Nothing is written that can’t be changed to read another way."
"And you know you’ll have a good time with Nan, with Brian, with Keegan."
"I’d never really considered a tattoo. So not me—or the me I thought I was."
"There’s no true happiness in sin, Breen, and I grieve for how he’ll suffer when judgment comes."
"I carried that boy in my womb and in my heart. I raised him to know God’s word and live by it."
"Marco has the brightest heart, the kindest spirit of anyone I know. I think that matters, so much, in this life and whatever comes after."
"Every one of his true family loved and accepted him, not despite who he was but because of it."
"Perfection in all things—except her only child, who’d fallen well below the mark."
"You were safe, healthy, with a good education and a perfectly good career."
"You’ll only have that—who I’m not, who you worked so hard to make me become. I’ve become something else, and I’m happy."
"I forgive you," Breen repeated. "And hope, sincerely, you have the life you really want."
"It had been a weight, so heavy, and now it simply spilled off her shoulders. Lighter, so much lighter, she walked and walked on a cool April afternoon."
"Home isn’t always a place. Sometimes it’s a person."
"You did your best, I accept that, and I’m grateful."
"And now I fit. I can’t make you fit into the mold I might wish for, and I won’t try."
"It’s what they’ve put into you, and into your head. I’m the one who raised you, the one who gave you a home, and stability, and a direction, a purpose."
"I realize you did your best, and that has to be enough."
"He held a mic in one hand, with the other on his hip. Roses littered the stage all around his red stilettos."
"Now your heart holds more light. Your nan will be pleased, and proud as well."
"My life isn’t perfect. It’s never going to be, but it’s mine."
"I won’t come back again, but I needed to tell you that. You were wrong, and you hurt me. And I forgive you."
"I can’t believe it. I don’t have words—and that never happens."
"I saw you there. Where were you? I don’t know that place. It wasn’t good, though."
"So much change in one year. So many wondrous changes."
"This is the big one. And you know, maybe it’ll be just what it’s supposed to be. Just a celebration."
"It’s home for you now, like your cottage will be. We both ended up living in two worlds, Marco, when for most of our lives we never really fit in one."
"He thinks its importance to us means we’re unprepared for him. He’s wrong."
"Be ready. We’ll fight, and we’ll draw him through as we planned."
"Warriors, and any who could fight, took up sword, bow, club, spear from the hidden stockpiles."
"And when dawn broke on the longest day, she stood in Talamh watching the light come, hearing the stones sing."
"She had blood on her hands, her face. Some of it Marco’s, some Sedric’s."
"You are Odran the Damned, and by blood of your blood, I fulfill my destiny."
"She saw faces she knew grinning back as she walked to the stand."
"And still they came, those who escaped the arrows and flame."
"One life for all life, she thought as she fell. One light for all light. For Talamh and all the worlds. This is my choice."