35 Quotes by Laurie Forest

Professor Hawkkyn’s star eyes sweep coldly over our side of the room. They catch on me and bore in. Recognition lights, like Bornial flint catching fire. “It seems we have a celebrity amongst us,” he marvels, his mouth tilting with incredulity, his eyes tight on me with unnerving intensity. “The granddaughter of the Black Witch.

It’s my belief that you have to look past the surface of things to get to the truth of.

But my eyes are quickly drawn away from the wand to her hand. It’s covered with deep, bloody lash marks that continue up her wrist and disappear beneath the sleeve of her cloak. I gasp in horror. “Holy Ancient One, what happened?” Her eyes are briefly filled with despair before they harden again, a bitter smile forming on her mouth. “I did not honor my wandfasting,” she whispers acidly.

My grandmother, more than any other woman, was the standard bearer of Gardnerian beauty. Known as “The Black Witch” by our enemies, she was one of the most powerful Gardnerian Mages ever. Intellectually brilliant, artistically gifted, stunningly beautiful and a ruthlessly effective commander of our military forces – she was all of these things. And I don’t just resemble her. I’m her absolute spitting image.

It’s hard, isn’t it?” he asks, his own voice breaking. “To have a mind that strays outside the lines?” I.

Gareth is a few years older than me at twenty, broad and sturdy with dark green eyes and black hair like the rest of us. But there’s one notable difference: Gareth’s black hair has a trace of silver highlights in it – very unusual in Gardnerians, and read by many as a sign of his less-than-pure blood. It’s been the source of relentless teasing all throughout his life.

But for me, life would not be worth living without at least having faith in that one thing – that there is another way, a path of justice, if you will. And that there is at least a very small sliver of hope that this path will one day be discovered.

I never want to be pure again.