Be careful what you wish for. Especially out loud.

Such a dark green, his eyes. They reminded her of the forest, of all the dangers lying dormant behind that verdant cloak of leaves.

Humanity is a cage, and our puritanical sensibilities comprise the bars. We are confined by our own reason and intellect, and yet most of us don't even know it.

His eyes were like a forest at night—dark, wild, and dangerous. They were as fey as the rest of him, calling to mind thoughts of terrifying legends and powerful magic. You could fall into eyes like that, she thought, and find yourself trapped forever. In that moment, he resembled exactly what he was: a witch prince, out for blood.

If evil had a laugh, she thought it would sound like his.

He was wild, like her, with the kind of profile sculptors liked to cast in bronze: a fiery young god chiseled from the elements. Even in moments of icy repose, she could sense that menace clawing just beneath the surface. The knowledge of its presence drew her, even as she knew that it should have repelled.

Phineas Riordan was exactly what came to mind when someone imagined a cruel prince from a fairytale: the kind that ruined maidens instead of saving them.

There is no playacting in this court. If you stay your hand, they will cut it off.

He acted like a libertine of Europe with a genteel Southern propriety—and had all the morals of an emotionless psychopath. The two former masked the latter, like leaves covering a snare. You didn't notice the steel jaws until they were impaled in your flesh, and by then it was already far too late to run.