While this wasn’t my favorite book, I definitely loved the plot in this book and the journey Gloam and Rig go on. How Rig, a raider who had rarely been out in the wastes, risked his life to help monsters who were enslaved by a heartless human who was involved in some questionable things. And no matter how crazy things got, he never gave up on wanting to release Gloam and the Borolesh. And then we learn about how gloam got enslaved 😢. Plus, we learn about a crazy new plot line going on around the wastes about a cult… 👀 For Aury and Ghost lovers, there is some overlap in this book, and we get a big purple surprise at the end 👏👏(my favorite monster). 

 

“Mary has already told you what I look like under here. I am ugly to human eyes. Not like you.” 

“Mary can go fuck herself, I scrawled on the page, digging the pencil in hard. I know you’re not ugly. You couldn’t be to me.” 

 

“There is so much I want to say to you.” 

“I’m ready to hear all of it.” 

“My Adam. I love you.” 

 

“Look at that pretty mouth.” 

“Nothing about me is pretty. Not like you.” 

“Not true. Everything about you is perfect. Including that voice.” 

 

“You are my Androcles.” 

“Who?” 

“The slave who pulled the thorn from the lion’s paw.” 

“Oh.” 

“And like the lion,”—Gloam reached out and cupped my chin—“ I will be loyal to you always, my Adam. I will never leave your side.” 

 

“Finding you has made everything worth it. I would go through it all a thousand times again to have you, Adam.” 

 

“I wish you’d never been through any of it. But at least I got to meet you.” “Not just meet me, little firebrand. You’re stuck with me now. You are my everything.” 

 

“You are my greatest weakness—not my true name, or any compulsion I can be put under. But you are the one I gladly carry. I would do anything for you, just as you have done everything for me.” 

 

“I never claimed to be mature. I’m only twenty-five. Technically my brain’s only just fully developed. I’ve got less than a year left to be a reckless idiot before I have to start being sensible.” 

“I’m afraid I don’t have that excuse, my little firebrand.” 

“How old are you?” 

“A little over a thousand.” 

“Oh. Okay. Just a small age gap, then.” 

 

“Rig, I can see your bare ass.” (Lilac) 

“And it’s the best one you’ll ever see, pal, so enjoy it.” 

“It is.” 

“Pretty sure yours is the best, but I’m going to need a closer inspection to make sure.” 

“I’m sure that’s what is called a bad pick-up line, is it not?” 

 

“He was so beautiful, my Adam, with his golden-brown skin and his soft, messy hair. His deep brown eyes were almost the exact shame shade as my blood. Perhaps that was a morbid analogy, but it called to something in the very core of me. He was meant for me. He was part of me.”