And elsewhere in the woods, there is another party, one taking place inside a hollow hill, full of night-blooming flowers. There, a pale boy plays a fiddle with newly mended fingers while his sister dances with his best friend. There, a monster whirls about, branches waving in time with the music, There, a prince of the Folk takes up the mantle of king, embracing a changeling like a bother, and, with a human boy at his side, names a girl his champion.
What they don’t realize is this: Yes, they frighten me, but I have always been scared, since the day I got here. I was raised by the man who murdered my parents, reared in a land of monsters. I live with that fear, let it settle into my bones, and ignore it. If I didn’t pretend not to be scared, I would hide under my owl-down coverlets in Madoc’s estate forever. I would lie there and scream until there was nothing left of me. I refuse to do that. I will not do that.
Tell me what I must slay, what I must steal, tell me the riddle I must solve or the hag I must trick. Only tell me the way, and I will do it, no matter the danger, no matter the hardship, no matter the cost.
Librarians are hot. They have knowledge and power over their domain... It is no coincidence how many librarians are portrayed as having a passionate interior, hidden by a cool layer of reserve. Aren’t books like that? On the shelf, their calm covers belie the intense experience of reading one. Reading inflames the soul. Now, what sort of person would be the keeper of such books?
Once upon a time, there was a human girl stolen away by faeries, and because of that, she swore to destroy them.
There is no banquet too abundant for a starving man.
I am the Queen of Elfhame. Even though I am the queen in exile, I am still the queen. And that means Madoc isn’t just trying to take Cardan’s throne. He’s trying to take mine.
It is said we learn more from our failures than our successes.
Only idiots aren’t scared of things that are scary.
I have said that he has the power to deliver a compliment and make it hurt. So, too, he can say something that ought to be insulting and deliver it in such a way that it feels like being truly seen.
Show your power by appearing powerless.
Perhaps you could just allow yourself to be rescued,” Cardan says. “For once.
You don’t know how long I’ve waited to hear those words,” he says. “You don’t want me dead.
I get why he chose her. I just wish she had chosen me.
Watching my back is the perfect opportunity to stick a knife in it.
He stares at me as though I am a stranger, but I have never felt less like one. For the first time, we are both unmasked.
The odd thing about ambition is this: You can acquire it like a fever, but it is not so easy to shed.
It’s ridiculous the way everyone acts like killing a king is going to make someone better at being one,” Vivi says. “Imagine if, in the mortal world, a lawyer passed the bar by killing another lawyer.
I start to speak, but he stops me with a gesture. “And you.” He looks at me, his lips curving in something that’s not quite a smile; it’s more and less than that. “I knew little else, but I always knew you.” And when he kisses me, I feel as though I can finally breathe again.
They were in love with him because he was a prince and a faerie and magical and you were supposed to love princes and faeries and magic people. They loved him the way they’d loved Beast the first time he swept Belle around the dance floor in her yellow dress. They loved him as they loved the Eleventh Doctor with his bow tie and his flippy hair and the Tenth Doctor with his mad laugh. They loved him as they loved lead singers of bands and actors in movies, loved him in such a way that their shared love brought them closer together.