205 Quotes by Sarah Monette

What Malkar was doing-and I wanted to shriek and giggle and weep, all at once-was creating a spell that would allow him to use me in the same way that Cabaline wizards used their rings. It was a brilliantly evil parody of Cabaline magic; even if I’d had all my wits about me, even if hadn’t been still mind-numbed by phoenix, I didn’t think I would even have been able to find a place to start a counterspell.

I felt him in my mind, even more vividly than I felt him in my body, a hurtful, hateful rending presence, like the color of blood, like the taste of iron, like the scent of burning, destroying everything in his path until he reached for the core of my power and seized it.

Felix’s rather rueful admiration seemed to distress Mildmay even more than his anger had.

I could feel something slowly shredding itself within me at how innocent they were, at how little of what Malkar had done to me they would be able to comprehend, even if I were able to describe it to them. I found that I did not want to hurt them by showing them their own blindness; this was all in the past, anyway, and it would do me no good to shock them with it.

Our minds have to translate magic into symbols we understand.

He smiled at me over his shoulder, a little smile and kind of twisted, but it meant he was glad I was here, and it made me warm all the way to my fucking toes.Yeah, I’m an idiot, thanks for noticing.

I took a breath that felt like a scream, and found the real darkness of the Hall of the Chimeras, candlelit and thick with shadows. I called the witchlight in a blazing crown, as if I could force the shadows to fail and die by nothing more than strength of will. Mavortian glanced back, and I could read the look he gave me; I’d seen it a thousand times before: peacock. I gave him my best and most infuriating smirk in return.

Power games and manipulation were like air in the Mirador and despite a new distaste for their childishness, I was breathing deeply.

I felt myself become cold, as if ice was forming along my spine and in the bones of my hands. Scraps of memory fluttered through my mind: the death of Sherbourne Foss, cold marble roses, a brick-lined tunnel, beneath the city, a pale faded boy with inhuman eyes.