283 Quotes by Marie Rutkoski

She looked into the shadowed corners of the room. Talking with him was like having a flower unfold inside her chest, then close up tight. Creep open. Collapse in on itself.

People in brightly lit places cannot see into the dark.

Bones must be silent like this, Kestrel thought, when they lay deep in the earth.

Harder to know that her father had sent her here. Hard, horrible, the the way he had looked at her, disowned her, accused her of treason. She’d been guilty. She had done every thing that he believed of her, and now she had no father.

But Arin saw Kestrel as she had been last night before the ball. How her hair had been a spill of low light over his palms. He had threaded desire into the braids, had wanted her to sense it even as he dreaded that she would. He had met her eyes in the mirror and didn’t know, couldn’t tell, her feelings. He only knew the fire of his own.

Arin’s god slapped him across the face. Pay attention, death demanded. Arin did, and after that, no one could touch him. When.

The snow fell on her, it fell on him, but Kestrel knew that no single flake could ever touch them both. She didn’t look back when he spoke again. “You don’t, Kestrel, even though the god of lies loves you.

I’m not sure that not knowing is the same thing as innocence.

The emperor leaned back in his seat. His cup of chocolate steamed, veiling his face as he tipped his chin and studied Kestrel with a slanting gaze.“Very neat of you, Lady Kestrel. You solve all my worries. You hand me the plains for the low price of poison. How nice that you minimize our enemy’s civilian casualties at the same time.