"I barely knew you. The moment I started to know you, I saw you, and I’ve never made a secret of my intention to have you at my side. I’ve seen your kindness as well as your rage, your compassion and your hunger for power, your curiosity for magic, and I’ve never faulted you for any of it, for the complexity of your character and your choices. I don’t think he can say the same. Oristev has known you since you were children, yet he never saw you. If he’d only taken you from granted and then regretted it I could have forgiven him, in a way, for his shortsightedness. Yet, since he saw your magic, he has done everything in his power to make you feel bad and self conscious for it, as if you were a villain for daring to wish for a life for yourself over the boundaries he built for himself, without ever asking, without ever thinking about asking: what do you want, Alina? Magic isn’t intrinsically evil, and you know he’s angry because he’s always been first until he wasn’t, until you stopped holding in for his sake and shined brightly’ there are tears in her eyes, and Aleksander is so close now he can feel her warmth on his skin even though they’re not touching. The words come tumbling out of his mouth, and he doesn’t even try to stop them. After two years, he wants her to know. He will leave no room for misunderstanding, he will show her exactly what they had done to her and then he would walk beside her as she took her revenge.