The Language of Thorns: Midnight Tales and Dangerous Magic

“I’m sorry,” he said. Are there any words so cursed?

He looked like a petulant dandelion, gathering breath to throw a tantrum.

The next day Lis returned to class and Ulla steeled herself, prepared to be stuck with the choirmaster once more. But when he told them to pair up for duets, Signy pressed her hand into Ulla’s. For the briefest moment, Ulla despised Signy, as we can only hate those who rescue us from loneliness.

This is the problem with making a thing forbidden. It does nothing but build an ache in the heart.

You come as so many have before—lonely, troubled, sick with avarice. A thousand desperate wishes have been spoken on these shores, and in the end they are all the same: Make me someone new. But before you

The young man left silently through the front door of the house and headed east along the road, toward the sun rising in the gray sky. At the beginning of everything, he discovered loneliness in the quiet of his own thoughts. He felt the echoes of longing in his fast-beating heart—an ache for Clara, for Frederik. Then all of that was gone. Unwatched and alone, he took his first steps on the snowy path. He was nameless again, with no one to move his limbs or offer him direction, with no one to dictate his next step but himself.

“Who are you when no one picks you up to hold you?” asked the Rat King. “When no one is looking at you, or whispering to you, who are you then? Tell me your name, soldier.” Are you mine? The nutcracker opened his mouth to answer, but he could not recall. He was Clara’s prince, her protector. He had a name. Of course he had a name. Only the shock of battle had driven it from his mind. He’d fought bravely. He’d taken Clara to meet his mother. He’d ridden a horse through a gleaming field of stars. He was heir to nothing. He was prince of a marzipan palace. He slept on spun sugar. He slept on gold. “You walk and talk and laugh when Clara dreams with you,” said the Rat King. “But those are her desires. They cannot sustain you. My life began with wanting something for myself. I wished to be eaten, then I wished to eat. A piece of cake. A bit of bacon. A sip of wine. I wanted these things from their table. That was when I moved my legs and blinked my eyes. I wanted to see beyond the cabinet door. That was when I found my way into the walls. There I met my rat brothers. They are not charming or pretty, but they live even when no one is looking. I have made a life in the walls with them, unwatched and undesired. I know who I am without anyone there to tell me.”

Wanting is why people get up in the morning. It gives them something to dream of at night. The more I wanted, the more I became like them, the more real I became.”

This is the problem with even lesser demons. They come to your doorstep in velvet coats and polished shoes. They tip their hats and smile and demonstrate good table manners. They never show you their tails.

laughter. But as you leave that dark gap in the trees behind, remember that to use a thing is not to own it.