*I am using a quotation from an exclusive version of the book I am reading. My copy does not have these exclusive pages, so I do not know the exact page. But the quotation is at the end of the book of the Barnes and Noble special edition of The Queen of Nothing by Holly Black.
**LYLA!! DO NOT READ THIS. IT IS A SPOILER FOR YOU. SCROLL AWAY.
The quotation I chose is from The Queen of Nothing by Holly Black. This excerpt comes from letters written from one character, Cardan, to another, Jude, but the letters were never received. In these letters, Cardan tells Jude about how he regrets exiling her, and how much he misses her.
And yet my heart is buried with you in the strange soil of the mortal world, as it was drowned with you in the cold waters of the Undersea.
It was yours before I could admit it, and yours it shall ever remain.
In this quotation, Cardan references the time that Jude was taken prisoner by the merpeople and held underwater, and how she is now in the mortal world away from him. He is confessing his love in this letter to her, while also recognizing the fact that we would never have said this to her just a few months prior.