Thorne blinked at her, then down at the sewage he could barely make out in the darkness. "Don't you have some tool in that fancy hand of yours that can get us across?" Cinder glared, light-headed from her body's instinctively short breaths. "Oh, wow, how could I have forgotten about my grappling hook?

She was a cyborg, and she would never go to a ball.

The sahara desert the Rapunzel the charity the gifted tales.

But her grandmother had never suggested she could think the same of Scarlet. You'll be fine, she always said, after a skinned knee, after a broken arm, after her first youthfull heartbreak. You'll be fine, because you're strong, like me.

Clearing his throat, Kai murmured, "You have no idea how to dance, do you?" Cinder fixed her gaze on him, mind still reeling. "I'm a mechanic." His eyebrows raised mockingly. "Believe me, I noticed. Are those grease stains on the gloves I gave you?

Vanity is a factor, but it is more a question of control. It is easier to trick others into perceiving you as beautiful if you can convince yourself you are beautiful. But mirrors have an uncanny way of telling the truth.

He was the fantasy of every girl in the country. He was so far out of realm, her world, that she should have stopped thinking about him the second the door had closed. Should stop thinking about him immediately. Should never think about him again, except maybe as a client - and her prince. And yet, the memory of his fingers against her skin refused to fade.