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she-posts-nerdy-stuff · 3 months ago

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Don’t Go Blindly Into The Dark

Summary:

To hide that he can't read, Jan Van Eck has been forcing his son to pretend he's blind since he was eight years old. Wylan is now attending Ketterdam University, and meeting Jesper Fahey may very well be about to change his life. But is he safe to tell Jesper the truth? And what will Jesper say if he does?

Jesper is struggling to weigh up his life in the Barrel and his life at the University of Ketterdam, and there's a good chance that his growing debt is about to make the decision for him. He hasn't attended class consecutively for months, but maybe that will change when his newest project includes partnering up with Wylan Van Eck. But can he really leave the Barrel behind him? And how long can he keep up the pretence of who he thinks Wylan wants him to be?

Meanwhile there is a darkness growing in Ketterdam, and it seems a killer may be stalking the streets of West Stave. An unknown evil is closing its jaws over the city, and it’s starting to feel like nowhere is safe.

Tags: @justalunaticfangirl @lunarthecorvus @i-need-help-this-is-my-obsession @devoted-people-hater

If anyone else would like to be tagged let me know :)

Content warnings for this chapter: trafficking references, implied sa references, discussions of death, violence, canon punishments that Inej received at the Menagerie, abuse, ptsd, flashbacks, threats, wounds and scars, fear of violence, implied racism, misogyny, imprisonment, implied murder references

AO3 link

Chapter 55 - Inej

Kaz had not, of course, deigned to inform Inej, when she said that she’d send Anika to the safehouse, that Anika was already occupied. She walked tightly out of his office, her mind trying to click through other ways of getting Jeluna safely out of Ketterdam if her contract could not be sourced. Maybe Kaz would do her the courtesy of a paid ticket and a fake name instead of forcing her to stow away, but even so Inej wasn’t convinced that Jeluna would make it through the journey alone, never mind whatever might be waiting for her on the other side of the True Sea. A country she hadn’t touched in 10 years, a homeland she was too afraid to breathe a word of language from - a harbour that connected to Ketterdam, that would be patrolled by slavers just like every other. But what else was she supposed to do for her?

Anika proved briefly difficult to track down; Inej eventually found her outside Layla’s door and clearly not in a particularly upbeat mood.

“Does he not want me to keep watching her?” she asked, jutting her chin towards the closed door behind her, “She’s still not asleep, Kaz said to stay with her all night,”

Inej grimaced. No wonder Anika looked so fed up.

“I’ll send someone else,” she sighed, trying to flick through potential options in the Dregs that wouldn’t scare the damn life out of Elodie and Jeluna if it proved necessary to go into the flat. She was coming up short, “Is Jade around?”

“Downstairs, I think. What’s going on at the safehouse? I thought it was empty,”

Inej raised an eyebrow.

“And that will remain the official standing. I’ll see you tomorrow,”

She walked away before Anika could get a chance to follow up, cringing slightly at the sound of Layla retching on the other side of the door. Why was Kaz having Anika watch her? Because he doesn’t trust anyone, ever, and he’s never going to.

Did he trust Inej?

He wants to finish me himself.

Then we’ll have to make sure he doesn’t get the chance.

No. Maybe. He might give the Wraith the closest thing to trust that he could - he believed her, he never once doubted that she would ignore whatever the Black Tips might offer her in exchange for crossing him - but he didn’t care, did he? He just didn’t want to lose a valuable asset. He probably wouldn’t even say valuable.

Then again, what had she been hoping for? She’d told him, he’d listened, she’d left. He was hardly going to offer her homespun comforts, was he?

I ain’t offering that bitch terms anymore.

Inej shuddered at the memory, at the sound of Riesen’s voice crackling in the air, or the ferocity with which he spat that word, like he wanted to drive it straight into her bones. She knew the word, of course, had heard it more than enough times spoken in Kerch, and a few in Ravkan. It always came with danger. It always made her pause. Yes, she’d heard that word plenty more than her fill. And yet she wasn’t even sure she knew a translation for it in Suli.

The first time she’d heard it she was a tiny little thing, too small to keep its recollection vivid in her head by now. It slipped like oil from the tongue of a Ravkan man as he argued with her mother at the edge of a Suli camp barely hours after they’d arrived; Inej was clinging to the leg of one her elder cousins, scared of this stranger and the anger with which he snarled the words of her second tongue, just barely daring to lean around from this safe, comforting leg to watch him in time to spot the sudden flush rising in her mother’s cheeks, the way the anger of her father and her uncles resounded as they stepped forwards to place their bodies between Mama and this interloper. Inej felt her cousin tense beneath her grip at that word but she had never heard it before then, did not recognise its shape, did not acknowledge that it was this word that had caused the change in her family’s demeanour. She just heard the shouting getting louder, saw her father pace towards this man as her mother reached out to catch his elbow from behind, and clenched her little toddler fist as tightly as she could manage around the edge of her cousin’s trousers. Barely a second of this fear had passed before he’d swooped down to cradle her in his arms, picking him up so she almost banged her chin against his shoulder.

“You’re flying, Inej,” he whispered in her ear, speaking Suli, playing their game of swaying her this way and that, clutched safe against his chest.

Inej could still see the argument over his shoulder, but she liked this game. She liked flying. She clapped her hands together behind his head, giggling as they swayed.

“Like swings!” she babbled, still clapping.

“That’s right,” he told her, as they reached the step to the door of her parent’s caravan, “You’re flying like we do on the swings,”

“Swing tonight?” she’d asked him, most probably through a stream of childish noises that were otherwise indiscernible as words.

“Hopefully,” they stepped inside and he whisked her up into the air to spin her about before pulling her back into his chest as she laughed, “As long as we can stay here,”

Inej had frowned as he set her down upon the bed.

“Stay here,” she said decisively, nodding her tiny head in confirmation, as though the question was of preference and not of safety.

“Fingers crossed,” he said, sitting down next to her and showing her his index and middle finger crossing over each other, “Can you cross your fingers, ‘Nej? Can you show me?”

Inej had giggled, twisting her tiny fingers messily over and around each other whilst she lifted her arms and flapped them about to show him. He beamed.

“Swing tonight!” she cried, crossing her fingers.

It felt like a promise to her; she was crossing her fingers as she said it, so it had to be something that would come true.

“Will you come watch us?” he asked, “If we swing tonight?”

Inej always watched them. She was the littlest, back then, since this was before her younger cousins came along, and would spend the shows held safely in the lap of whichever family member was not on stage at each given moment. She loved watching the shows, had already learned when to applaud and when it was more polite to keep quiet, had already learned and understood the pride of seeing Mama and Papa, her uncles and her aunts, her cousins, in their performance.

“Watch swings!” she’d cried excitedly, clapping her hands again as she thought of flying, “Watch the wire!”

“Which one’s your favourite?” her cousin asked, and the decisive reply came:

“Wire.” she tapped her chest, “Walk on wire,”

“You want to walk the wire?”

“I will,” she tapped her chest again, “I will walk on wire,”

He grinned, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and rocking them both gently from side to side.

“You’re going to be a great wire walker, Inej. The best,”

Inej clapped happily, rocking from side to side, picturing herself on the highwire and the world a very great distance beneath her. She had almost forgotten the argument outside.

There were a couple of instances of hearing it at home, in Ravkan, where Inej had been old enough that she could still recall them now, but not many. She’d long ago lost count of how many times she had heard it said in Kerch.

She heard it first from Tante Heleen, barely the second day after her arrival at the Menagerie. Inej had been left alone on the floor to tend to her wounds from Heleen’s fury at her having cried the night before - once she’d woken up, anyway; once she was done with the switch and the cane Heleen had choked Inej until she passed out. She’d awoken at the foot of the bed in the room that she could not call hers, a golden chain between her ankle and the wooden bedframe. Heleen wouldn’t unlock her until this evening, when she needed to prepare herself for the night, but that wouldn’t be for hours yet. The chain wasn’t long enough for Inej to even climb onto the mattress, not that she’d wanted to, so she had no choice but to stay curled up where she’d woken, her knees tucked beneath her chin and her arms wrapped around her shins, her eyes drifting to the barred window that seemed so very far above her head. She wanted to make herself as small as possible. She wanted to disappear.

The door opened earlier than she was expecting - the sun was still high in the slither of sky visible to Inej - and she felt panic rising in her bones. It happened quickly, in the space that it took for someone to open the door and step into Inej’s field of vision, the process of trying desperately to barter with emotions that would not listen to her, arguing her limbs into stillness and her face into passivity, for fear of only making everything worse. The door was closed far faster than it had opened, and a girl, maybe a year older than Inej, slammed her back against it. In spite of herself, Inej crawled the single step around the bedpost that she could manage, peering at the stranger with the finger pressed tightly against her pursed lips.

She wore a cloak over shoulders that her silks would have otherwise left bare, but the hood was turned down so Inej could not determine the shape of the animal ears sewn over it. Her own cloak - the cloak she wore, not hers - was somewhere in here, she knew, but she hadn’t been able to move and find it. She would have to be quick about gathering it to go downstairs when Heleen came to unlock her cuff. The girl’s skirt, which fell above her knees in the front but cascaded to her ankles behind, was dark orange, and the tight silk top that left very little to the imagination was mostly white, edged in the same colour as the skirt. The Fox, Inej realised, taking in the reddish orange of the cloak and the black lace stockings that swirled up the girl’s bare calves. Ravkan.

“Chto-?” Inej began, her voice soft and nervous, but the girl shook her head almost violently.

Inej leaned back, heart leaping into her throat, staring at her. What was she doing here? She shouldn't have come. She was going to get both of them hurt.

Inej pulled away, moving back out of view of the door, leaning her back against the side of the bed and staring back at the window. Maybe if she ignored her the girl would leave. Maybe if she ignored her, when the girl got caught Inej wouldn’t be punished as well. It seemed a pretty unlikely scenario. After a moment, and a small, cautious footstep, a tentative voice managed:

“Do you speak Kerch?”

Inej said nothing, did not even dare to look in the girl’s direction. This was her mistake, not Inej’s and she would not let herself be destroyed for it.

“Kei ryezich Kerch?” the girl tried again, “Kei ryezich Ravkayash? Na ryezich Suli,”

Do you speak Ravkan? I don’t speak Suli.

Inej was doing her best to ignore her, but she was also still a stubborn child from the Suli caravans who did not like being underestimated.

“I speak Ravkan,” she said, in the language, not looking up, “We all speak Ravkan,”

“And Kerch?”

“Some,”

When she finally gave in and tilted her head towards her invader, it was to see immense relief breaking across her face.

“Good,” she whispered, switching to Kerch, “Do not speak Ravkan. Do not speak Suli,”

Inej said nothing.

“I am Yana,”

Yana’s Kerch was slow and deliberate, halting in places, but with the little she knew of the language that was mostly what Inej needed to be able to follow a conversation. After a beat of silence that she knew Yana was waiting for her to fill with her own name, the Ravkan girl instead ventured:

“You have bruises,”

She tapped her neck very gently, and Inej lifted her own hand to feel the painful flesh around her throat. She supposed she shouldn’t have been surprised.

“She will bring a Healer, before tonight. I do not know when - we might not have long,”

Inej was tired. She was so, so tired. She wanted to sleep. She wanted to eat. She wanted to cry. But she would gladly have stayed on the floor, hungry and scared and tired, chained to the bedpost for days on end, if it meant that it was the only thing that would have to happen to her.

“Why?” asked Yana, not needing to specify what she meant.

Inej looked back out the window.

“I think… because I cried. I didn’t un… un-der-stand everything she said,”

“You need translations?” asked Yana, sitting down uninvited opposite Inej, “I can try to help,”

Inej leaned round the edge of the bed for a moment, eyes flicking over the door, then back to Yana. She found herself momentarily focusing on the girl’s black lace stockings. Inej’s own feet were bare, cold against the floorboards. Yana’s feet, she realised only when she’d been staring at her for long enough, were scarred beneath the stockings. She could see the marks between the swirling edges of the lace.

“We should have a little time, at least,” the girl assured her, “She is busy,”

There was a long, long silence.

“I’m Inej,”

Inej couldn’t remember the exact shape of every word that Tante Heleen had hissed into her ear but she repeated what she could of the words she hadn’t known, and Yana did her best to dutifully translate. And that was how Inej learned the Kerch translation for the word she’d first heard as a toddler, that she had heard a handful of times in Ravkan, that even now she was not sure she knew the translation for in Suli. Yana looked down, embarrassed or uncomfortable or both, and mumbled the word into her chest apologetically. Inej just nodded in silence; a vague memory of her mother, of a stranger, of flying in her cousin’s arms, that she couldn’t quite see clearly was tugging at her edges. She didn't want to see it - and yet, she desperately did. She wanted to sink into it, into being a child clinging to her elder cousin’s shoulder, and never climb back out.

She learned other things from Yana, too. New words. New things to be cautious of, new things to be afraid of. She learned what happened to the last Suli girl at the Menagerie - though she could tell Yana hadn’t meant to let it slip, everything implicit in her words had been quite obvious to Inej. She learned that Heleen never sent her buyers to the auctions that the rest of the children on the ship that brought Inej here were to be taken to; she had greased the right palms, made the right deals. The men who’d taken Inej took any Suli girl they found to Heleen for first picking, if she wanted her, and they’d do the same for any other vacancy she might need to fill. Apparently now she was looking for someone from the Southern Colonies; the Leopard cloak was empty. Inej learned these things and filed them away inside her head, gathering a catalogue of any information she could scrounge together. Over time she started gathering more, from other sources, until it had become a strange escape; a library in her mind, where she could wander freely between the shelves and peruse the books to her liking. All these little things, stored inside her head. She hadn’t realised they’d be what saved her life.

I can help you.

And that was how it started. Yana, sitting across from her on the waxy wooden floor. She’d managed to slip out before Heleen appeared, but it had been a close thing.

“Inej?”

Inej jolted as the shape of the Slat reformed itself around her, grey walls at her side and wonky floorboards beneath her leather-soled shoes.

“Inej?” Anika ventured again, a little nervously, “Are you okay?”

Inej blinked. It seemed she had only made it as far as turning the corner to the next set of stairs, and Anika was leaning around the wall with concern forming a little divot between her brows. Behind Anika, though Inej wasn’t sure the girl had noticed, Kaz was standing halfway down the steps that led to his office. Inej scowled.

“Send Jade to the safehouse,” she snapped, not entirely certain which one of them she was addressing, “That’s not my job,”

And with that, she turned sharply on her heel and marched away. Back to her room to be alone for as long as she could manage it. Back to her room to eat, to try to sleep, and to send up a prayer for poor, pretty Yana.

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lissomelle · 2 years ago

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First Lines Fic Meme

Tagged in a first-lines-of-fic meme by the diabolical (and wonderful) @hmsharmony!

Rules: share the first lines of ten of your most recent fanfics and tag however many people you like. If you have written fewer than ten, don’t be shy and share anyway!

Tagging: @morewonders, @theopensea, @spurlunk, @bananaleaves, any other writers who want to do this 😘

There’s going to be a lot of WIPs here, lol — additional asterisk that anything unpublished is not set in stone. I have more in the drafts, but this is more than enough. (Telling myself I’m allowed to post because I’m actively working on most of these!!)

* * *

1. untitled post-s2 fic — in-progress | Shadow & Bone (TV), Nikolai/Zoya/Alina/Mal + permutations

The shadow demon wakes him in the dead of night on the palace rooftop.

Or the edge of it, as it were. Shivering, palms smarting and feet bare against the crushed tiles as the wind tears at his thin shirt and trousers, Nikolai employs his years on the sea to swear profoundly.

Sleepwalking. Again.

2. untitled canon divergence AU fic — in-progress | Shadow & Bone (TV), Alina/Mal

The first thing Alina learns in Ketterdam is that the Crows are proper criminals.

When Kaz isn’t dispensing alarming advice (“Preferable when the blood on your hands isn’t your own”); Inej isn’t sharing leads on honest work; and Jesper’s not eyeing a conquest, losing money, and recommending pleasure and leisure establishments like mayor of the city all at once — they’re a sleek, secretive unit. A deadly one, if the rumors are true. Their discretion doesn’t slip so much as deliberately lower when it might benefit to leave a fingerprint. A warning that they were there.

They know the city better than anyone, but more importantly, the city increasingly knows them.

3. untitled post-canon fic — in-progress | Moon Knight (TV), Marc/Layla/Steven

Despite everything, two constants remain in Layla’s life:

One, Marc still disappears.

Two, most times, Steven’s there instead.

She doesn’t know how this works. Being good at math never prepared her for having half a husband or two husbands or just many, many shards of a man. Fractions don’t explain the way Marc and Steven will flow into each other now, quicksilver fast, just as they don’t explain why or when one will stay while the other leaves.

4. untitled canon divergence AU fic — in-progress | Knives Out, Marta/Ransom

What’ll you do when I’m gone?

Marta had her fingers at his wrist, counting beats to measure his pulse. That’s not for a long time, Harlan. God willing.

You need an adventure. Go now, send me postcards and pictures. Crack open the bone and suck the marrow out of life!

You wouldn’t last a day.

5. untitled canon divergence AU fic — in-progress | King of Scars, Zoya/Nikolai

In their record-breaking run of poor ideas, Zoya thinks, this has to be the worst.

Lying side by side, the space between them feels narrower by the moment.

“I would make you my queen because I want you.” In the dark of the cargo hold, Zoya can’t be sure of Nikolai’s expression but his words sound certain. “I want you all the time.”

6. sanctity of our own devising (Mature) | King of Scars, Zoya/Nikolai

Sainthood is its own kind of death.

In the long, slanted hand of history, she is already being worn smooth, iconified yet also erased. Names rise and fall like snow in Ravka. Pure, cleansed by the storms that wrought them. Such is the way of Saints, bodies and humanity alike spent in the making of sanctity. Only one lives to rule a nation, scholars have begun to write.

Daughter of the Wind. Dragon Queen. Herald of a new age.

7. Null and Void (Teen) | To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, Lara Jean/Peter

The first note is easy.

Just the bottom of a clean sheet ripped out of his notebook and folded twice. Peter doesn’t even think before adding the heart and writing her name outside.

We’re gonna crush this, Covey. Trust.

8. rhythms of unseen drums (Teen) | Black Panther, Nakia/T’Challa

When the world first spoke to Nakia, it chose to murmur.

She discovered early her aptitude for language, her mouth deftly forming words to fit their native shapes. Her teachers encouraged it, offered tomes and music from every country, which she drank up in greedy gulps until she could quote lines by Murakami and sing bars of Edith Piaf with equal ease.

The idea to leave home stayed buried, setting down spindly roots but never peeking above the soil. She thought and then quashed the idea of becoming a translator in the capital city one day; Wakanda’s borders were not hers to open.

9. timbers we place by hand (Teen) | The Punisher, Frank/Karen

The front door won’t shut.

Less than a year of living in a doorman building, and the auto-lock for the entrance is useless because the goddamn door won’t shut all the way. Karen tries coaxing it into place, nudging and wriggling the doorjamb. No good. Sighing, she’s got the number for the front desk pulled up on her phone when the thought appears, unbidden, that this might have been the point. To catch her on the stoop, distracted.

She looks up sharply, sweeping her gaze from left to right and sliding a hand into her bag.

10. The Hollows of Shells (Explicit) | The Scorpio Races, Puck/Sean

To no one’s surprise, Sean Kendrick steps across the threshold of the Connollys’ house so many times it isn’t long before he arrives to an extra place already set at the table and a worn groove in the ancient, battered sofa that fits around him.

Today, however, he stands on the front step, shifting from foot to foot. He has a strong urge to knock on the door even though it’s been months since Puck made an impatient noise and told him he could simply walk in. It feels like an old contract rendered null, the new terms uncertain now that he’s arrived with everything he owns in hand — scant though it is.

#enthusiasm for any of these v much welcome!!! a girl's gotta eat #fic #memes #i'm not strictly speaking ''in fandom'' anymore but sometimes you just do a thing for yourself

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beautifulbows924 · 7 years ago

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Main Masterlist

All works (or theories) are my own, original writing! (Any established characters I borrow, are not mine.)

I’m currently accepting tips for my work—however, I’m not truly certain if I’ll ever get around to doing commissions, mainly because the amount I post wanes depending on my real life schedule! Regardless, if in the meantime, you really enjoy my work and wish to support me, feel free to leave a tip, comment, or reblog. But don’t feel obligated, I mainly write for fun! :)

Happy Reading!!! Requests are open and to let me know if you want to be tagged send me an ask!

You may also find some of my works on AO3.

Last Updated: April 25th, 2024

-> Upcoming Works

-> AFG Bingo Masterlist

-> Writing Bingo Masterlist

Crowley & Aziraphale

Theories Heaven’s Number - The Coffee Theory - Assorted

Drabbles

“Do you know—the only reason why I would have agreed to be an angel (again)?”

Morpheus, Dream of The Endless

Oneshots I Never Knew Daylight Could Be So Violent Endlessly Devoted - Hopeless Surrender

Series

A Single Dream, A Thousand Realities / A Waking Dream, A Dreadful Nightmare / An Endless Dream, A Ghost of A Smile

Summary: Death asks her brother a favor. [AO3]

Drabbles

“What do you think of when we’re apart?” - “You will not beg for anything, not from me.”

Steven Grant, Marc Spector, Jake Lockley, Layla El Faouly, & Khonshu

Oneshots A God, a Mercenary, and a Gift-Shopist - Sunset

Awkward Beginnings - The Dating Problem - Tension

Violent Desires - A Night to Remember - The Choice - Scars

Surrounded By Every Lie - Sacrifice - Forgotten - Firsts

Series

Double the Trouble / Reflections / Of Gods and Men

White Lies / Afterlife [Completed]

Summary: You’ve been friends with Marc your whole life, always secretly wishing you could be something more. So when he goes missing for months and suddenly turns up at your door asking you to help make sure one of his alters, ‘Steven’, doesn’t find out about the mess his life has become—of course you say yes. But what does that mean for you and Marc? Especially, when you’ve started to fall in love with Steven too.

A Cruel, Capricious God

Summary: You were Khonshu’s avatar before Marc came along. When he left you in the desert, almost dead. You’ve sworn to kill his next avatar to force him back to you, but what happens when you find don’t find Marc, but Steven instead?

Tears Ricochet - Begin Again

Summary: The ennead made you forget your service, any memory of your beloved God. So when you meet Steven and Marc, both connected to the deity—and begin to fall in love with them. Will you remember the God that once had your heart?

Over the Love

Summary: A modern retelling of the greek myth Orpheus and Eurydice.

Drabbles

“Oh, but I’m just having so much fun with my friend here—”

Kaz Brekker, Inej Ghafa, & Jesper Fahey

Oneshots Words - Home

Misc. Extras

Common Ground (Astarion Ancunin)

As You Wish (Homelander)

Creed (Din Djarin, The Mandalorian)

Masterlist - Rose’s 2K Writing Challenge

If you want to find my real person fics (as I no longer write for rpf), search my blog using the name of the person you are looking for.

If you want to find my “lost” or discontinued works, head to my -> Old Works Masterlist.

#COMPLETE MASTERLIST #rose’s personal #my work #Moonknight #The Sandman #Shadow & Bone #BG3 #x Reader #Character x Character #Good Omens

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escapeinpapers · 5 years ago

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MAY WRAP-UP

This month, I think I spent way too much time in booktube that my attention for a certain book quickly goes to another one. I’m quite mad at myself because I had not been consistent of my May TBR. Even so, I’m still pretty proud of myself because I’ve read more than what I expected to read. Also, I would say there were books that disappointed me this month but there were some that I quickly rated as 5 stars and made me so emotional.

So here are the books that I’ve read for the month of May.

NEW ADULT/ADULT ROMANCE

To Love Jason Thorn by Ella Maise (2/5)

The story is told by POV’s main characters, Olive and Jason. Olive is an indie author whose book will be adapted into a movie. She then finds out that the actor who will be playing the male protagonist is her brother’s childhood bestfriend/ her childhood crush and first love, Jason.

I honestly love the childhood crush and second chance romance trope on this book but it was getting bad and bad as I continue to read. I even prepared myself to be ready for a major twist or revelation but I was just disappointed. It felt like there was no real and impressive conflict on their relationship. I enjoyed the first few chapters and maybe towards the first half but it just got really crappy. There were cringey love scenes and sometimes the characters were being dumb that it is so frustrating.

(P.s. Every time Jason calls Olive “little one”, I cringe and I remember Thanos from Avengers lol.)

The Guy on the Right by Kate Stewart (3.5/5)

This is a friends to lovers novel. Main characters are Theo and Laney. Theo is quite shy and a reserved person. He lives in a house with Troy, the popular playboy roommate. He calls himself as “the guy on the right” because Troy always takes the spotlight and many girls go after him. He met Laney on a party. She, on the other hand is the quirky, outspoken and hardworking country girl. They became close, started a social media page and they eventually fell in love with each other.

This is my first new adult book ever. I’m usually into young adult and adult books so it was a huge step for me to explore this genre and gladly I enjoyed this book and now I’m more interested to read other new adult books. The storyline was good. I gave it only 3.5 stars because it was just an okay read for me. I love the elements of music and social media. The characters were also charming in their own ways. And you’ll get quotations called Grannism every end of a chapter. Some were really relatable.

Read my full review:

The Naked Truth by Vi Keeland (4/5)

The book is all about a second chance romance. Layla, a lawyer, was asked to do the pitch for a prospect client to their law firm. She didn’t know that the client she’s gonna impress was Gray, her ex who just got out of prison. Gray want Layla back and he wants to clear all the misunderstanding and explain to her why he had to lie to her.

I didn’t expect to love this book. I love the shift of timelines from present to the past. I thought that it will be just full of steamy scenes but the plot was amazing. The twists and turns were impressive. There’s one that really struck me and I literally screamed with that revelation. It was a major drama I didn’t see coming. I think people who love K-Drama (like me) would like this book. I also love how the author portrayed the aspects of family, marriage as well as death. The lawyer-prisoner romance was also interesting. It is my first time reading that kind of trope. My only issue with this book is Layla being sometimes annoying with her petty arguments.

The Unhoneymooners by Christina Lauren (5/5)

Due to food poisoning, Olive’s twin sister and Ethan’s brother can’t make it to their honeymoon in Maui. Thus, Olive and Ethan were asked to take their places. The problem is, Olive and Ethan do not get along very well. They pretty much hate each other’s guts but the two need to work together and act as newly married couple. Only, they didn’t realize that this free vacation is changing their lives.

This was an easy 5 stars for me. I enjoyed this book so much because it was atmospheric. It felt like I was on the beach myself because of how engaging the story was. The enemy to lovers and fake marriage/relationship tropes were done beautifully. I was easily hooked into the story and the twists were just freaking good. Olive and Ethan’s chemistry is so strong. Their banters were very fun. I just love love love this book.

Read my full review:

Ugly Love by Colleen Hoover (5/5)

The story revolves around Tate and Miles. Tate is a nurse who has no time for love and Miles is a pilot who doesn’t want to love again. Their first meeting was not great but their paths always cross because he’s her new neighbor and he’s her brother’s friend and co-pilot. Physical attraction grew between them and they can’t put aside their desires so they had some sort of friends with benefits relationship. But things get really bad because they are slowly breaking their own rules.

This is officially one of my favorite books of all time. Everything in this book is just perfect. I kind of judged this book very wrongly 2 years ago when I first tried to read this because I thought it will be just about sex and at that time my smut level on books was really low. But, I decided to read it again out of a whim at freaking midnight. I looked past through the love scenes (though idk I find it dreamy and romantic now) and focused on the story, and swear, I was blown away. I never thought that I would cry so badly again over a book.

Read my full review:

FANTASY

A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas (2/5)

This is somewhat a Beauty and the Beast retelling. Feyre, a normal mortal girl, killed a Faerie (a magical creature) while she was hunting for food. She was punished to live in a High Fae’s manor to pay for the life she had taken and she ends up falling in love with Tamlin, her captor who can shapeshift and who wears a crappy mask.

I really want to love this book. Some people told me to don’t stop reading because it will get good. But sadly, I just did not like it (Sorry! ). The writing is atmospheric though, I admired it at first. However, as I go on, the description of the settings or for the other things were too much and I think did not necessarily affect the situation at hand. Sometimes, it was just too flowery and over with metaphors. Feyre and Tamlin as characters were not effective, their chemistry is “meh”. There were cringey lines especially on the love scenes. The plot twists were not hard for me to predict. I think this book was not just for me to read. Though, I’ve been told that the sequel is the best among the series so I might give it a shot soon.

The Grisha Trilogy by Leigh Bardugo

Shadow & Bone (3/5)

Siege & Storm (3/5)

Ruin & Rising (2/5)

Alina had discovered her unique powers to summon light when they were assigned to cross the Shadow Fold. It’s a forsaken place of impenetrable darkness with flesh eating monsters. Leaving Mal, her childhood bestfriend and the guy that she also likes, she was sent to the Little Palace to work with the magical elites called Grisha in hopes that she could destroy the fold and unite Ravka. While working to hone her powers, she finds herself developing feelings for The Darkling, the mysterious and attractive as hell leader of Grisha. On her journey to destroy the Shadow Fold, she encountered many challenges, revelations and truth about the people around her.

I really had high expectations for this series because I love the author and her Six of Crows duology. But I was again, disappointed. It’s not that it was that bad, it was not just as great as I expected it to be. I have a love and hate relationship with this series. The first book was good. The build up of the story was beautifully done. I love the magical system and the characters were intriguing, but only at first. I understand why the Darkling is hyped up till now because he is absolutely mysterious and hot (plus Ben Barnes will be playing the role for the Netflix adaptation). Revealing Alina’s power as well as the Darkling’s was very cool. The second book is where the Darkling gets literally dark. Even though this was more tensed because of the twists, I enjoyed and laughed many times than the first book because of Nikolai. He’s not the main character of this series but its funny because I like him the most. Scratch that. I love him. The third book was just so disappointing. I enjoyed the side characters’ romance more and the twists were not that impressive. And the ending? Worst. I think there’s one common denominator of all the things that I didn’t like in this series, and that is Alina being a typical weak female protagonist. She is just annoying sometimes, too dependent of the other characters and does weak and petty arguments.

Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo (5/5)

This is the sequel of the Six of Crows duology. Kaz and his crew did the heist they were asked to do but they had to face their consequences and take down the real enemy. As much as I’m excited to tell you more about the plot, I won’t go any further because I don’t want to spoil anything.

I absolutely love the first book and I was not disappointed with this one. This is my best fantasy reads so far. I fell in love more with Kaz, Inej, Matthias, Niña, Wylan and Jesper. They are just freaking amazing. The character development was done so good. The plot twists are super amazing and I got fooled many times. Also, the ending is so satisfying. I have to admit, I enjoyed this duology more than The Grisha Trilogy.

Read my full review:

YOUNG ADULT CONTEMPORARY

10 Blind Dates by Ashley Elston (4/5)

We follow Sophie’s journey towards healing her broken heart. Her Grandma decided to set up her in blind dates and the guys he’ll be dating are chosen by some of her family members. So, she went onto these days, in hopes to forget her ex-boyfriend. But things get complicated. Her ex wants her back but the feelings she had for an old friend is growing back.

If you’re looking for something that is light, cute and a quick read, this is the book for you. The blind dating thing was just very cute. I never expected to like it, but it was just interesting and each date was fun in their own ways. I also love the essence of family and friendship on this book. As a person who grew up in a family-oriented household, I can relate so much of the main character.

Read my full review:

They Both Die at the End by Adam Silvera (5/5)

In this world, there’s this system called Death Cast. They call people to give them an alert that they’re gonna die on that day. No when and how but only the information that on that day that you are called, it’s your time to say goodbye to the world. Mateo had been always paranoid about the time that he will receive the call. So, when Death Cast called him, he had been more paranoid than ever. Then, he met Rufus, who’s also gonna die that day, through The Last Friend app. Despite the two having very different attitude towards accepting their death, they decided to spend their last day together.

This is the kind of book that is very hard to put down. The title itself is already very intriguing. All the time I was reading this, I can’t help but to be anxious because knowing anytime soon, Rufus and Mateo are gonna die. I had a lot of theories on how they would die but it was no where near. The narration is very deceiving which I love. The message of this book is also very touching plus the characters are very relatable and I can’t help to put myself in their shoes. I know it is unpleasant to think about death especially these times but this book just made me realize things about life and it made me reflect and ask myself on how I’ve been living my life so far. I love this book so much that it is one of my best reads for this year and I might make a full review for this one.

So those were all the books that I've read for the month of May. For June, I've been thinking to read genres that I don't usually read such as msytery and thrillers. I hope I would be consistent on my next month's TBR.

Thank you for reading. I hope some of the books caught your interest. Till my next post ❤

#may wrap up #book review

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she-posts-nerdy-stuff · 4 months ago

Text

Don't Go Blindly Into the Dark

Summary:

Tags: @justalunaticfangirl @lunarthecorvus @i-need-help-this-is-my-obsession

If anyone else would like to be tagged let me know :)

Content warnings for this chapter: ptsd, death, blood, implied gore, descriptions of dead bodies, choking, murder, abuse, manipulation, conditioning, implied sa references, trafficking references, implied violence, imprisonment, and reference to human experimentation (kind of a minor spoiler for this chpater but not really - this last point is regarding the abuse Jeluna suffered, so it's mostly events that have already been established but they actually get labelled as experimentation in this chapter)

AO3 link

Chapter 47 - Kaz

Kaz marched back to East Stave with fire in his throat, his cane crashing against the cobbles like he was trying to break them in half. The sun was still trying to make an appearance between the clouds but the air was damp and Kaz’s leg was screaming its complaints; the rain would start soon, he was sure.

The Slat came into view ahead of him, a welcome sight even if he wasn’t staying long - he had too much work to do for that, Layla had made sure of it. It wasn’t just about finding someone to cover the tables, it was that no-one could work the tables like Layla did; really Elodie would have been a terrible second option, she was too quiet, too mousy, but Kaz had thought she must have at least some sort of mask to put on if she’d been waiting on customers at the White Rose. Still, he knew really she wouldn’t have been able to draw anything out of these high rollers the way that Layla always did.

“They make it easy,” she’s said once, years ago now, after more than enough glasses of whatever cheap as shit wine Haskell had wrangled that week, “It’s like once they see me all other thoughts - oh, whoops - all other thoughts go pshhhh,”

She mimicked, waving a hand from her head up towards the ceiling, and almost threw her glass across the room. Kaz took it off her, unamused.

“Right outta their heads. Just bam,” she clapped her hands together, “And s’all gone,”

Layla was quite possibly mad, but she was damn good at her job and for as long as it stayed that way Kaz wasn’t going to complain. Except for today, he conceded, because she wasn’t going to show up. Inej had been frustratingly correct; if Layla wasn’t coming to work, it had to be serious enough that they didn’t want her there. Though Kaz also couldn’t rule out the possibility that she’d spent the years he’d known her cultivating a very specific reputation, just so that when she did finally bunk off - or double cross him - no-one saw it coming, no matter how unlikely that was. After all, nobody had seen her today. She hadn’t sent someone in on her behalf to tell Kaz that she was ill, just a rough little note.

He was overthinking this. Besides, no-one was committed enough to a cover that they intentionally came to work with firepox, were they?

Kaz decided to send someone to cover her door at the Slat once he got inside, just to be safe.

It wasn’t until Kaz had almost reached the front door that Jesper and Wylan appeared around the corner, seemingly on the way back from West Stave. Kaz’s first thought was that Nina hadn’t been exaggerating about Wylan’s scars; they couldn’t exactly have been described as subtle - but did that dissuade him from the belief that Wylan could see more than he was letting on? The cloudiness over his irises had vanished. It was hard to argue that the scars didn’t look realistic, certainly, but Kaz didn’t feel immediately convinced. He was rarely immediately convinced of anything.

His second thought was that Wylan did not look well. Despite not having used a cane since coming to Barrel he seemed to get around reasonably well, often using tactile aids around him or the company of someone sighted, but now he was unsteady on his feet and the arm he’d hooked round Jesper’s elbow was clearly taking more weight than he wanted to admit to either of them. He was paler than usual, noticeably so even as they approached each other, his pupils were dilated, and the dark shadows under his eyes were emphasised.

“You passed out again,” said Kaz, by way of greeting.

“I- how-?”

“Well, hello to you too, Kaz,” Jesper gave him a cheery wave, and Kaz ignored him.

“Roeder said this has happened before,” he continued, adjusting his weight against his cane as halted, “How often?”

Wylan’s cheeks heated in indignation; he more than knew by now, of course, that Kaz had sent someone to watch him and Kaz knew that Roeder had fought off more than one idiot who either didn’t know Wylan was under Dregs’ protection or had been stupid enough to take a try anyway, but every time it happened to come up in conversation Wylan responded the same way.

“Not often,” he just about managed, after a moment of hesitation, “This was- this was the first time in a while,”

Kaz didn’t protest, but he wasn’t entirely convinced - and he needed to know if this was a growing issue. He couldn’t afford for Wylan to collapse with a bomb in his hand, and definitely not if it happened at the workshop. There was far too much money wrapped up in there. He said nothing, turning to the front door of the Slat and paying little attention to the pair once they were out of his eyeline, but still made a mental note to speak to Nina - she might be able to find the cause and monitor things, at least, if there was no way of stopping them.

“Anika,”

Kaz moved his hand in a short, deliberate beckon and Anika stood to follow him towards the stairs.

“Layla can’t work tonight, I need you to-”

“I can wait on tables, Kaz,” Anika shook her head, apparently missing Kaz’s bristle at being cut off, “But I can’t control an audience like she can, and I definitely won’t be-”

No, Kaz thought, and we definitely need that tonight. One in particular, he noted, had connections to Councilman Hoede and, no matter how tenuous they might be, Kaz was sure as hell going to make use of them. No, Anika could not do what Layla did. But I’m sure I know somebody who can.

“You don’t need to,” he said tightly, “As I was saying, I need you upstairs to watch her door - and keep someone on Pietro as well, Bieren maybe. Someone else is going to cover the game,”

“Why do you-?” Anika looked up through her yellow lashes to lock eyes with Kaz, and swallowed her original question to replace it with: “Who’s covering?”

“Guess,”

Anika smiled.

“I’ll send a message,” she said, “If that’s all?”

“Tell her to get here an hour early. She’ll need time to learn information on the marks. I want you to stay on Layla all day and night - don’t hide that you’re there, but don’t let her know that I sent you. You’re the closest thing we have to half-competent-”

“You flatter me,”

“-so it shouldn’t be suspicious if you decided to check in. She does anything suspicious then let me know, other than that… well, as I said, you’re the closest she’s getting to a half-competent Medik around here,”

“There are so many problems with this plan that I don’t know where to start,”

“Bite your tongue, Anika, and just do your damn job,”

Anika gave him a mock salute before she sauntered off, her thumb hooked through the belt loop of her trousers as she shouted for Bieren across the room. Kaz paced upstairs, his mind whirring through everything that needed to be done for tonight - and everything they might be able to garner from it. He was only becoming more certain that Jeluna was somehow linked to the reports of unusual activity across the Geldstraat these past few months - but did that mean that Tara and Amethyst were somehow related to it all as well? It seemed unlikely that Councilman Hoede was the one who’d murdered them. Well, it wouldn’t have been unreasonable to suspect him after Tara’s death, but after what had been done to Amethyst… no, there was something different there. And anyway, it seemed that it was only Jeluna whose time had been paid for - but was that because Hoede was getting smarter? He could have had Tara and Amethyst abducted, thinking that no-one would notice their absence the same way no-one noticed the girl he took the previous month and been caught off-guard when they were reported missing. So instead of abducting Jeluna he made a deal with Kaatje de Waal to keep her for two weeks; maybe Jeluna really had managed an escape but if she had -

No, that didn’t make sense. If Jeluna knew that he’d paid Kaatje for her to stay there, it would take a hell of a lot to make her run. And the lack of memory; Kaz assumed it was from some kind of drugs, and if that was the case - for what else could it be? - then running would only be farther from the realm of possibility. Then what? Kaz tried to think through the facts, to summarise them in his head.

A girl was abducted from a pleasure house on West Stave and showed up dead over a week later. A month after that, Tara went missing from the Menagerie and returned in much the same manner. At a much sooner interval Amethyst was taken from the Sweet Shoppe, and rediscovered in a far more gruesome death. There were efforts to make them all look like crimes of passion; the first two girls were choked, the last stripped of her silks, all of them missing for some time before their unpleasant reappearance. Tara’s body had been returned to the Menagerie; Amethyst was found on the steps outside the Exchange; Kaz didn’t know much about the first girl’s discovery, barring the reported cause of death. There had been a pause - maybe the violence of Amethyst’s death had gotten out of hand? They weren’t expecting it, and had to lie low for a while? - before Nina spoke to a girl at the Willow Switch and learned that Jeluna Kir-Mai was missing. And that was strange as well, wasn’t it? Whatever her name was - Kheja? - had insistently told Nina that Jeluna was unavailable and then proceeded to slip her a note that said they took her. But it wasn’t until two weeks later that Jeluna was considered missing.

Kaz was missing something. He had to be.

Was it at all possible that Tara’s death had been more than it seemed? After all, bruising wasn’t difficult for a Corporalnik to invent, was it? Maybe whatever the cause was had actually been more similar to Amethyst’s than he had realised, just more subtle. And if so, could Jeluna’s memory loss be linked back to the same trigger?

Some Grisha can do that, can’t they? Jesper had asked, when Kaz told him about Amethyst’s body, They say the Darkling could.

Kaz had dismissed it - what he understood of the Cut meant it would be cleaner than what he’d seen at the Exchange, a different kind of precision to its power. This had been messy, frenzied even. Passionate - but what if there was more behind the theory than he’d considered? His first thought had been that Amethyst had been the victim of some kind of weapons testing, and he’d disregarded it because Tara didn’t seem to fit the image. But what if both things were true? If there was really more to Tara’s death than it had seemed, if something unnatural had been done to all of them… was there some way of harnessing Grisha power to create a weapon? Kaz had no idea. Nothing of the sort had ever been done before, nothing of the sort could even have been considered possible before - and even if that was the case, it hardly solved this mystery.

Kaz could not keep track of the threads that were weaving around each other now, too many to count and too closely wound to find and undo their knots. But he thought that solving the question of Councilman Hoede may very well be a good start.

The rain began whilst Kaz sat at his desk, working on a ledger for the Crow Club, and quickly thickened to heavy tears streaking down the window panes and hammering on the roof. By the time Inej climbed through the window it was probably wet enough to call a storm, and Inej was dripping. Kaz looked up at her, studying the loose pieces of hair that had become plastered to her forehead. For one small, inane moment he almost offered her a towel, and had to resist physically shaking himself free of the thought.

“You’re late,” he said, looking back to his books.

He could picture Inej’s face without turning his gaze to her, could practically hear her bristling from across the room.

“It took a long time to settle Jeluna,” she said.

Kaz nodded, still not looking up, and tapped his pen against the page.

“Well?”

He’d expected - maybe even hoped - that Inej would return to her usual perch on the windowsill as she gave him her report. He had found himself craving the normalcy, the comfort of their routine. Maybe it was better that she just stood there, eyes cold, and spoke to him like she was reading off a script. Maybe he could shatter whatever illusion he’d been constructing between them, and let them both get on with their jobs.

Inej rattled through her usual report, the Black Tips and the Dime Lions mostly, and then:

“Oh, and Councilman Hoede’s house has been shut off,”

Kaz looked up.

“The whole place was crawling with stadwatch, but they’re saying it’s going under quarantine for a firepos outbreak. I couldn’t get close enough to find out if it was family or staff, the barriers…”

She kept talking, but Kaz had stopped hearing anything she said. His first, very brief thought, was that if there were no abductions for the next month or so it would go a long way in confirming whether it was Hoede himself behind them. His next, much longer and much more in the foreground thought was that of ten thousand screaming alarm bells ringing in his head.

There could be a firepox outbreak. The last time Layla hadn’t come into work she’d had firepox - it was more than possible to contract it twice, and Kaz didn’t know of anyone who’d survived long enough after that to get it a third. If Layla had firepox there was a high chance Pietro did as well - and he had Anika and Bieren with them both. Fuck.

He could do this. He could think his way out of this. It was the one thing he was always only halfway committed to being prepared for; trapped somewhere in between the need to know they had systems in place and the inability to let a single thought pass through his head when it came to plague. He had to think.

They could close off a floor of the Slat - or even just the back rooms, so no-one would even have to share a staircase with anyone who might be infected - and quarantine people in there. He could get Nina to run through any possible treatments or preventative measures, he could limit staff at the Crow Club, he could open up one of their safehouses as a temporary replacement for home instead of the Slat if he needed to. It would be fine; he could work this out. He would just have to think his way out of it, like he did everything else.

“Kaz?”

Kaz turned his head sharply back to Inej, his fists tightening, his fingers pressing against each other to find the reassuring feel of leather between his palms.

“Did you pick up any chatter?”

Inej frowned and he cursed internally as he realised she must have already told him this, but she said nothing except:

“I couldn’t get close; they’re putting barriers up around the house, and the Geldstraat in broad daylight is an easy place to get caught. I’ll go back tonight, see if I can’t find anything out from the staff at any of the other houses,”

Kaz nodded.

“Good. But steer clear as you can from the Hoede house itself,” there was a pause and Kaz scrambled for a plausible reason that wouldn’t raise her suspicions anymore than he surely already had, “There’ll probably still be stadwatch there,”

A long quiet settled over them, nothing but the hammering rain and the tense stare of Inej’s dark, endless eyes. Usually Kaz wouldn’t have minded, but there was something unnerving about the way that Inej could make you feel her quiet - and about the impatient gaze that he could feel over him even as he turned back to his ledger. He listened to the rain for a moment, felt the scent of it and the damp, fresh earth that had drifted through the open window on a quiet, cool breeze. His door was closed. Maybe if Kaz stood and slammed the window shut Inej would leave. He didn’t.

“Spit it out, Wraith,”

“Why did you push her like that?” she whispered, “Why would you do that to her?”

Kaz turned the page of his notebook.

“I’m not here to protect her,” he said, like they were talking about any regular business venture, “I need her to understand what has actually happened to her, because for as long as she doesn’t she’s going to keep defending Kaatje, and she’s going to keep protecting Kaatje from anything we might be able to find out about her. We won’t get anywhere if she won’t talk to us, and in that case,” he looked up with cold eyes, blatantly aware of how cruel his words were about to be and telling himself that he did not care, “she doesn’t have much use to me, so why would I keep her around?”

Inej’s jaw twitched.

“You shouldn’t have done it,” she said, and then - after a long pause and in a quieter voice: “She did open up a little,”

Kaz resisted the urge to smile.

“Go on,”

“She talked to us about arriving at the Willow Switch; said she supposed she knew that it was a long time ago really, but she didn’t understand how she hadn’t known any of it for this long. She was never allowed to talk about how long she’d been there and she says she can’t remember seeing that many seasons - but with how much you said about Kaatje keeping her indoors…” Inej trailed away for a moment, then added: “I went to the Willow Switch before I came here,”

Kaz raised an eyebrow, but he kept quiet.

“It’s not easy to get in; most of the rooms don’t have windows. And…” she swallowed, “A similar set up to the Menagerie, below,”

A basement. Rare for most Kerch buildings, but not particularly unusual for the pleasure houses.

“Anything worth reporting on?”

“Jeluna isn’t the only one,” Inej said, after a beat, “But she was the first,”

Kaz stood up and began to slowly make his way towards the basin that lay just past the divider that separated his sleeping quarters from his office; the attic space at the Slat was essentially one large room but Kaz didn’t need everyone who came to his office being able to see his bed beyond.

“She was an experiment,” he said, and from the corner of his eye he saw Inej nod.

He leant his cane against the wall and stripped his gloves off slowly, flexing his fingers in and out of fists before plunging them into the cold water. In the peripherals of his vision, Inej moved silently to seat herself beneath the open window. Her clothes were still damp from the rain, the loose wet hairs at the front of her face tracing patterns over her skin and the end of her braid, though no longer dripping, curled and was in place by the water. She studied the grey sky, fingertips dancing over the lowest edge of the glass. Kaz had not missed the way she’d hooked a hand beneath her injured leg to pull it up to herself the last time she sat here, something she never used to do before, but she didn’t seem to have done so now. He hoped that meant it was improving, and not that she was lying to him.

He waited for the easy silence to slip over them as he dried his hands, slipped his gloves back on, collected his cane. The rain had become a light patter now, but the sky was still dark and the threat of thunder did not seem to have dissipated.

“So,” he said, as he stepped forwards, “What do you think of this situation with the Zemeni trade ambassador?”

When Inej looked up, she might have almost smiled.

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