Welcome stranger, welcome to the Fortress of Quotes.
High black walls between the trees of a gloomy forest.
Immense towers.
Hundreds of little turrets filled with diamond beset Christmas Trees and stockings embroidered with stars made of real gold. They reach high up to the sky, so high, in fact, that the air is thinner up there, as if you were in the huge Sikurzoi mountains between Ravka and Shu Han and not on a human-made fortress.
Still, the really extraordinary treasures - yes, even more so than the small ships laden with the finest gingerbread cookies that fly through the air (and are said to have been made by Nikolai Lantsov himself) - the really extraordinary treasures you won't find in the towers. For these are stored underground in a labyrinth of vaults dug deep into the earth.
You want to see what's in there? Then I must let you know: no stranger ever gets to see the vaults. You'd have to get in secretly - unseen, unheard and unnoticed.
An impossible break-in, you say? Well, we all know, when people say impossible, what they usually mean is improbable.
And I happen to know just the team of talented criminals for your purpose...
- advent calendar with one six of crows/crooked kingdom quote each December-day until Christmas -
Luke has been in love with his best friend, Taylor, for too long now and it's getting difficult to be around him. He knows it's time to move on and find someone who can make him happy, but he feels like that will never happen, not with the way Taylor has his heart...
*****
Being in love with your best friend is hard. Luke Peterson knows this better than anyone else, as he's agonized over his feelings for Taylor Schofield for the past five years. So when he meets the handsome and confident Will Carson who wants to help him get over Taylor, it seems like the perfect chance for him to move on. But can Luke truly give Will a chance? Or will his heart always belong to his best friend?
Content and trigger warning: This story contains descriptions of suicide and homophobia.
[[word count: 60,000-70,000 words]]
Cover designed by Holly Thurston