“We raised a child together,” Jiang Wanyin says, voice thick with pain. “You two were sworn brothers.” He swallows hard and oh. Oh, no. Lan Xichen is not ready for this conversation. He is never going to be ready for this conversation. “And because of what he did, there is nowhere outside this room that either of us can mourn him.”

Lan Xichen has been in seclusion for half a year, healing, he thinks, from the way his world was upended that night in a temple in Yunping…

Sing, o Muse, of the wrath of a philosophy major upon realizing his roommate/boyfriend has borrowed his copy of Fear & Trembling and has no intention of giving it back. Scenes from one highly troubled semester.

Art for reine_des_corbeaux.

But thou dost in thy passages of life
Make me believe that thou art only marked
For the hot vengeance and the rod of heaven
To punish my mistreadings.

There's rules that go with being Adam's errand boy -- sort of workplace regulations. Be there whenever he needs you, don't mess with his stuff, don't ask annoying questions.

When he is Lord of the Dreadfort he'll have ruby rings on his fingers.

Notes in a study of daemonology.

"Whatever you want," Nathan finds himself saying when his shirt comes off over his head and his glasses hit the nightstand — like he's talking to himself, which he might as well be. "Don't think about it like should, or shouldn't. Don't think. Don't fucking try and figure it out. Come on. You can keep your shirt on."

The king is sick, and the prince is his cure.

“Has no one done this for you?” Jin Guangyao asked, eyeing Xue Yang in the mirror.