"What did she know about the Black Forest? Only what she’d been able to glean from the maps in the library and from Luc’s fairy tales: Castles hidden in glens. Trees as tall as city buildings. Wolves and stags and bears. Mad princes who drowned in lakes. None of Mada Vittora’s books described an ancient academy deep in the woods, a place where it always snowed, where girls wanted magic badly enough to die for it."

"Call it sentimentality. Call it curiosity. Just don't call it madness."

"There’s dark magic there,” Luc warned. “Creatures who like the cold, who like girls who wander into their woods. Whatever you do, don’t let them kiss you."

"Something breathing, something bleeding, something blue.It was time to cast her first spell as the Gargoyle."