Rachel Gillig

Elspeth needs a monster. The monster might be her.

Elspeth Spindle needs more than luck to stay safe in the eerie, mist-locked kingdom of Blunder—she needs a monster. She calls him the Nightmare, an ancient, mercurial spirit trapped in her head. He protects her. He keeps her secrets.

But nothing comes for free, especially magic.

When Elspeth meets a mysterious highwayman on the forest road, her life takes a drastic turn. Thrust into a world of shadow and deception, she joins a dangerous quest to cure Blunder from the dark magic infecting it. And the highwayman? He just so happens to be the King’s nephew, Captain of the most dangerous men in Blunder…and guilty of high treason.

Together they must gather twelve Providence Cards—the keys to the cure. But as the stakes heighten and their undeniable attraction intensifies, Elspeth is forced to face her darkest secret yet: the Nightmare is slowly taking over her mind. And she might not be able to stop him.

One Dark Window

Sophia 

Still, it was the first time I stopped fearing the Nightmare- the voice in my head, the creature with strange yellow eyes and an eerie, smooth voice. Eleven years later, and I don't fear him at all. 

Victoria Sutton

I love the way the Nightmare speaks. His rhymes and the tarot card poetry are so well crafted!

Caroline Clutterbuck Kapulkin

My magic moves … My magic bites. My magic soothes. My magic frights. You are young and not so bold. I am unflinching—five hundred years old.

I want to live in Castle Yew, I absolutely adore the descriptions of old libraries and wild gardens.

Ravyn returned to Castle Yew the next morning. I heard the clatter of hooves. I slammed shut the tome I was reading and slunk out of the library in a cloud of dust, navigating the back passages and hallways of the castle until I found a small wooden door that led straight from the castle into the wild gardens beyond.

The aesthetics!! I want to visit this castle IRL 😭 I hope we spend more time here in the second half of the book

 Mourning doves cooed, the noises of dawn lively in the garden. I snapped thin reeds off the willow tree and wove them into a simple crown and placed it on my head. Charm in hand, I slid from my seat out into the mist, searching the garden for wild carrot blooms.

As far as I could tell, Castle Yew housed no gardeners. As orderly as he kept the castle, Jon Thistle's attentions did not extend beyond the statuary. The gardens were wild. I liked that about them. Unlike the manicured hedges and blooms at Stone, Castle Yew's eclectic assortment of herbs, weeds, and blooms looked as if they might rise up and take the castle by storm—wild and strong and free.

The cobbled path had been absorbed by plant life. I slipped over mossy stonework and trod deeper into the greenery in search of flowers.

My palms were scratched and tattered, blood soaking my fingers where my nails, now embedded with soil, had broken. Around me, the earth was upturned, the grass disturbed. Something, or someone, had flattenedit.

“There once was a girl, he murmured, clever and good, who tarried in shadow in the depths of the wood. There also was a King -a shepherd by his crook, who reigned over magic and wrote the old book. The two were together, so the two were the same: "The girl, the King...and the monster they became."

Spindle, Hawthorn, Juniper, Beech, Gorse, Ash, and so on. It was the history of our kingdoman ancient homage to the Spirit of the Wood -to take the name of the trees.

I sat by the tree and traced my finger through the damp soil where the foliage had begun to rot. ln my other hand, I twisted my charm. I wiped my eyes on the back of my palm, tears stinging my skin where the thorns had cut it. 

I love that “trees” is used as an expletive.

Trees, the Nightmare muttered, scraping his claws. Now we must play at tea with Blunder's bottom-feeders? You said joining these fools would be dangerous. You said nothing of torture. 

There he was again, asking to touch me. I nodded, and when his hand traced up and down my rib cage, I almost forgot the pain, too worried he'd feel the rapid beat of my heart.

One Dark Window quotes

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