Kendare Blake Quotes

I think of her again. Anna. Anna Dressed in Blood. I wonder what tricks she'll try. I wonder if she'll be clever. Will she float? Will she laugh or scream?
How will she try to kill me?

I have been eating poison since I was a child. Now I am practically made of it.

God, living people are irritating.

Guys," he says. "After this is over, can we go get a burger or something?"
"You're thinking about food now?" Carmel asks.
"Hey, you haven't spent the last three days fasting and doing herbal rue steams and drinking nothing but Morfran's gross chrysanthemum purification potions." Carmel and I grin at each other in the mirror. "It isn't easy becoming a vessel. I'm freaking starving.

Don't profane yourself, or the Biodag Dubh.
Oh, Mary Ann. Me and the Beedak Doo are just fine.

The rhythm of the footsteps, the sound of whatever is coming down the ladder is driving both me and my mom steadily toward peeing our pants.

I'm just saying it doesn't always have to be spirits and magic. Sometimes hauntings are in your mind. It doesn't make them less real.

Queens do not remember these things,"
"Saying so does not make it true."
"You will need it to be true, for it is too cruel otherwise, to force a Queen to kill what she loves. Her own sisters. And for her to see that which she loves come at her door like wolves, seeking her head.

Arsinoe, are you ever going to listen to me?
Yes. Absolutely.
When?
When you're right.

She jogs until she reaches Billy, and falls in step beside him. He glances at her, then back at the ground.

"Is this how it is, then?" she asks after several moments. "One visit to my sister and we are no longer friends?"

He stops at the crest of a hill and squints out at the sun sparkling off the ripples in Sealhead Cove.

"I wish we weren't. When my father sent me to Rolanth, I swore that I would hate you. That I wouldn't be a fool like Joseph and get myself stuck in between." He smiles at her sadly. "Why couldn't you be wretched? Don't you have any manners? You should've had the courtesy to be terrible. So I could despise you."

"I am sorry. Shall I start now? Spit in your eye and kick you?"

"That sounds like something Arsinoe would do, actually. So I would find it endearing

She's liked you since chemistry last semester," Carmel says, scowling.
"Then you should have told her what an ass I am. Made me sound like a moronic jerk."
"Better to let her see it for herself.

It's the twenty-first century. Arriving to find a bunch of old dudes in brown robes would be equally weird.

Except for the severe coloring, Arsinoe does not look much like a queen. Her hair is rough, and they cannot keep her from cutting it. Her black trousers are the same ones she wears everyday, and so is her light black jacket. The only piece of finery they could get her into for the occasion was a new scarf that Madrigal found at Pearson's, made from the wool of their fancy, flop-eared rabbits.

I wish this knife was good for something besides death, that I could cut through time and walk into that house, into that kitchen where he trapped her, and get her out of there. I would make sure she had the future she should have had.

For it is too cruel otherwise, to force a queen to kill that which she loves. Her own sisters. And for her to see that which she loves come at her door like wolves, seeking her head." When

Do you know what they do with the dead queens, Sister? [...] They throw them in the Breccia for the island to eat. And may I tell you a secret? [...] They are tired of it.

Jules!" Arsinoe hisses. "Jules, are you down here?"

"Arsinoe!" Jules and Camden scramble up to the bars as Arsinoe runs to them. They embrace her as well as they can with hands and paws. Camden purrs and licks her face.

"Camden, blegh." Arsinoe grins and wipes her cheek.

"I might have licked you as well, I'm so happy to see you." Jules gasps.

She draws her sister's blood with a pair of silver shears. What was meant to simply trim her hair has instead shorn off an ear.

The truth of you is yet to come . . . I know only that you were once a queen and may be again.

I like ordinary. People only wish for adventure until they're stuck in the middle of one. Haven't you ever seen The Fellowship of the Ring?

And thus was their burial of Apollo, god of the sun.

I come in all big and bad, and you use me for a game of handball." I grin. "Makes a guy feel damn manly. She grins back. "It made me feel pretty manly.

Life's more interesting with gray areas.

When he realizes that Carmel's standing behind me, he quickly checks his face for drool and tries to smooth his hair down. Unsuccessfully.

Girls on the other hand, have always come easy. I don't know why that is, exactly. Maybe it's the outsider vibe and a well-placed brooding look.

I'm staring at Anna's house again. The logical part of my brain tells me that it's just a house. That it's what's inside that makes it horrifying, that makes it dangerous, that it can't possibly be tilting toward me like it's hunting me through the overgrowth of weeds. It can't possibly be trying to jerk free of its foundation and swallow me whole. But that's what it looks like it's doing.

I am your servant," he answers, and touches her cheek. "I am your slave. I am here to make sure every one of the suitors does not think of either of your sisters before they think of you.

Over the course of my life I've been to lots of places. Shadowed places where things have gone wrong. Sinister places where things still are. I always hate the sunlit towns, full of newly built developments with double-car garages in shades of pale eggshell, surrounded by green lawns and dotted with laughing children. Those towns aren't any less haunted than the others. They're just better liars.

Everyone else has sort of scattered off to their respective corners. I suppose everyone's doing some thinking, maybe saying some prayers. Hopefully Thomas and Carmel are making out in a closet.

I can feel her there, mingled into the mud of a hundred other ghosts, some shuffling and harmless, others full of rage. I can't imagine what it is to be dead; it's a strange idea to me, having known so many ghosts. It's still a mystery. I don't quite understand why some people stay and others don't. I wonder where those who leave have gone. I wonder if the ones that I kill go to the same place.

Queen Mirabella stands at the altar of the Goddess. Sweating, but not from heat. Elementals are not bothered much by temperature, and if they were, no one inside could complain of being warm.

It's shitty I guess. They're my friends. But ... everything I want to talk about I can't say to them. It feels so separate, like I've touched something that's taken the color out of me.

With her weakening gift, she could be burned, and Arsinoe imagines that for a girl who used to dance with fire, there could be nothing worse.

His hands have begun to tremble, and he stuffs them into his pockets. They have put him in a thick gray coat, but he wears no scarf, and the skin of his neck and chest are exposed at the open collar. The healer in Arsinoe resists the urge to wrap him in a cloak. He is still weak and should be in front of a cozy fire with a hot bowl of soup.

"How is it that I have come to be here?" he asks. "I gather that I was stolen from the capital."

Emilia shoves him again. "You are here to give information, not get it."

"Emilia." Jules shakes her head, then returns her attention to Pietyr. "You were stolen from you sickbed in Greavesdrake Manor. From what we have heard, you had been there for a long time."

"You don't remember anything?" asks Arsinoe.

"Have you ever been unconscious, Queen Arsinoe?"

"Yes."

"Then you should know that is a stupid question."

She frowns. In her mind, she takes away his bowl of soup.

His eyes, when they meet hers, are like the storm. Perhaps he is not a boy at all, but some elemental thing, made by the crashing water and the endless thunder.

I am your servant. I am your slave. I am here to make sure every one of the suitors does not think of either of your sisters before they think of you. - Pietyr

I hit him with a board; of course he's got a concussion. Don't be an idiot.

Prometheus on the rock. Do you know that story? Every day he's punished for giving mortals fire by being strapped to a rock and having his liver eaten out by an eagle. I always thought it was a poor punishment. That he'd just get used to the pain, and the eagle would have to think of some new torture. But you don't. And he does.

Cas, superheroes go to college too" " I'm not a superhero mum

I even had this idea that the knife stopped working, that after a certain time it just stops working for you, when your number is up. I thought maybe it was me who had done it. That I killed him just by growing older, and being ready to replace him.

This is the Legion Queen," Mathilde says to the frozen crowd. "The strongest naturalist in ten generations. The strongest warrior in two hundred years. She is the one who will fight for all the gifts. She is the one who will change everything.

What are you going to fill it with?" she asks. "Holy water or something?"
"Probably Dasani," Thomas replies.

Thomas grins, grabs her hand, and kisses it. Since they just got back together, I'm willing to let this PDA business slide.

We walk around like a photograph that my dad's been cut out of.

He went crazy over Greek mythology, which is where I got my name.

They compromised on it, because my mom loved Shakespeare, and I ended up called Theseus Cassio. Theseus for the slayer of the Minotaur, and Cassio for Othello's doomed lieutenant. I think it sounds straight-up stupid. Theseus Cassio Lowood. Everyone just calls me Cas. I suppose I should be glad--my dad also loved Norse mythology, so I might have wound up being called Thor, which would have been basically unbearable.

It's a hard choice, but this is why I lead. No one else has the stomach to do the unpleasant things that sometimes need doing.

I don't appreciate the implication that I'm going to hurt someone.

But hey, at least we'll have this strange story to tell, love and death and blood and daddy-issues. And holy crap, I'm a psychiatrist's wet dream.

No one really wishes to be a queen.

I'm not a superhero, I say. It's an awful tag. It's egotistical, and it doesn't fit. I don't parade around in spandex.

I can feel that photo of Anna staring at me from sixty years ago, and I can't help myself from wanting to protect her, wanting to save her from becoming what she already is.

Well?" Jules asks when Joseph and Billy are safely out of range. "What do you think of him?"

Arsinoe squints. Billy Chatworth wears the clothes of an islander, but he does not wear them well. He is only an inch or two shorter than Joseph, and his sandy hair is short, almost pressed flat against his head.

"He's not nearly as handsome as Joseph is," Arsinoe teases, and Jules blushes scarlet. "I knew he would grow into that Sandrin jawline. And those eyes." She prods Jules in the side until she laughs and swats her away. "Anyhow, what do you think of the mainlander?"

"I don't know," Jules says. "He said he had a cat that looked like me when he was younger. With one blue eye and one green. He said it was born deaf."

"Charming," says Arsinoe.

But the mall is a thing that should not be suffered. Except maybe for Cinnabon.

You know what I hate about flashlights?" Thomas asks, and I watch his beam move around the room, revealing sudden bird faces and shifting wings, then nothing but cobweb-covered boards."They always make you think about the stuff you're not seeing. The stuff that's still in the dark.

Without a word, we start to walk together down the long hall. I'm so pent up and irritated with this place; I want to kick down the closed doors and break up a prayer circle, maybe juggle the athame with a couple of candles just to see the horrified looks on their faces and hear their screams of "Sacrilege!

I like it more to come to a place like this, where the scent of death
is carried to you on every seventh breath.

We are all dual natured, Queen Mirabella. Every gift is light and dark. We naturalists can make things grow, but we also coax lobsters into pots, and our familiars tear rabits to shreds. Elementals burn down forests as easily as they water them with rain. The war gift is for protection as well as slaughter. Even those with the sight are often cursed with madness and paranoia. Even the poisoners are also healers.

In her mind, every last Queen lies at the bottom of the sea, drowned by the Goddess the moment she was done with them.

My dad always said that water makes the dead feel safe. Nothing draws them more. Or hides them
better.

...I want to press my head into the steering wheel until the horn goes off. That way the horn will cover my screams

I feel … sane. Is that possible?

He was a god, he said, and always had been. Or at least, that was what they used to be called. What they were now, he didn't know. It seemed like the wrong word when he was so limited, so much less than he'd been before.

You know what you are, don't you?" she asks. "You're my salvation. My way to atone. To pay for everything I've done."
"Anna," I say. "Don't ask me to do this.

Fate is playing a practical joke.

You're ... what was it Carmel said earlier?" She looks down, then back at me. "An ass.

I make my way to her table, seeing her eyes growing wider as I do. Ten or so other girls probably just developed instantaneous crushes on me, because they see Carmel likes me. Or so the sociologist in my brain says.

All this faux flattery. It's not enough to make me forget he's a dick. Admittedly, though, he's sort of a charismatic dick.

You could be the one. But up close, you are such a disappointement. Your eyes are wary as a kicked dog's, when you and I both know you have never been kicked in your life. Not like me, who has been kicked down with poisons and popped blisters and made to vomit until I weep. That is why I am going to win,

Rolanth Temple is a weather queen's temple, open to the east and west, the roof supported by beams and thick marble columns. Air moves through no matter the season, and no one shivers, except for the priestesses.

Do you see what I do?

It's like I'm trapped in one of those omniscient dreams where you just watch yourself do stupid shit, yelling at yourself about how stupid it is, and your dream-self just keeps doing what it's doing anyway.

By the time I had gotten off the phone, I knew that I was going after Anna. My gut told me that she wasn't just a story. And besides, I wanted to see her, dressed in blood.

Are we lost? You'd admit it if we were lost, right?"
Thomas smiles, maybe a bit nervously. "We're not lost. At least, not yet. They might've changed some of the roads around since the last time."
"Who the hell are 'they'? Road construction squirrels? It doesn't even look like these things have been driven on in the last ten years.

It would be sweet to be cared for despite her faults, and to be wanted for her person rather than the power she comes with.

If this is mytstical, what the heck is Advil going to do about it?

Why are you here? Did you come to try to kill me again?" "Oddly enough, no. I - I had a bad dream. I needed to talk to someone.

I want to get some sleep, so if there's something mind-numbingly disturbing you want to show me, can we just get it over with?

I get to be Peter Venkman," says Thomas. "Nobody gets to be anybody," I snap. "We are not ghostbusters. I've got the knife, and I kill the ghosts, and I can't be tripping over you the whole time. Besides, it's obvious that I would be Peter Venkman." I look sharply at Thomas. "You would be Egon.

The cloth overlay of Billy's cart clucks, and a brown chicken pokes her head out from under the covering, stepping out of the basket she was riding in.

"There is a chicken in your cart."

"I know," Billy snaps, and slaps his napkin across his lap.

"Why is there a chicken in your cart?"

"Because this was supposed to be chicken stew," he says. "I've been hand-feeding this bird for days to be sure it was not poisoned before the fact. And now . . ." He pours Mirabella some water and drinks from her cup. The hen clucks, and Billy tosses down a chunk of bread.

"Now her name is Harriet," he says quietly.

Mirabella laughs.

How she poisoned her sisters so slyly and quietly that it took them days to die. How when it was over they looked so peaceful that had it not been for the froth on their lips, you would have thought they had died in their sleep.

It's true what they say about answers only leading to more questions. There will always be more to find out, more to learn, more to do.

He seems to be a bird of few words.

Four small flames ignite and illuminate our faces and chests, revealing expressions that are part wonder, part fear, and part feeling stupid.

But Jules will not give up. Not even if it is the queens' sixteenth birthday, and Beltane is in four months' time, falling like a shadow.

She's no ordinary ghost, that seems certain," he says. "I know. Something's made her stronger." "The way she died?" he asks. "I'm not sure. From what I've heard, she was just murdered like so many others. Throat slit. But now she's haunting her old house, killing whoever steps inside, like some goddamn spider.

This is as close as I've ever heard to a Thomas and Carmel argument. And as special as it is to listen to your friends argue over whether or not you have a mental illness, I'm starting to get the urge to go back to class.

He says you kill ghosts for a living. Like you're a ghostbuster or something." "I'm not a ghostbuster.

But everyone knows that the Breccia Domain is more than an empty hole in the earth. Who knows what happened to the queens who were thrown down into the dark? Into the heart of the island, where the Goddess's eye is always open. Who knows how she kept those queens or what she turned them into

... you'll need some help getting acquainted. I'm Carmel Jones." "Theseus Cassio Lowood. What kind of a parent names their kid Carmel?" She laughs. "What kind of a parent names their kid Theseus Cassio?" "Hippies," I reply. "Exactly.

Land of the Dead? Is that what you dream about?" she asks. "Boy who kills ghosts for a living?"
"No. I dream about penguins doing bridge construction. Don't ask why.

Just let me kill you," I mutter in frustration.

The things that your eyes see plainly and cant forget are worse than huddled black figures left to the imagination.

If you find a way, I'll be there. Right to the end of the earth and over it.

What talent you have for making a compliment sound like a threat.

The state of shock is losing its
charm. I want my brain back. Can't it just shake itself off like
a dog already and get back to work?

You'd better eat that," she says.
"I'm taking it easy on my stomach," I protest. "Come on. It just had a knife in it.

I can't believe that she's questioning the existence of magic when she's standing before me dead and talking.

I don't know why, but for a second, my brain was sure that it would be Anna, that she'd be pounding the door down off its hinges with blackveined fists, ready to catch me with my pants down. But we were just doing dishes. My pants are firmly affixed.

Don't be afraid of the dark, Cas. But don't let them tell you that everything that's there in the dark is also there in
the light. It isn't.

If your mom's a witch, what does that make you? Harry Potter?