KnDtK

“Who are you, and what are you playing at?”
“Nikolai Lantsov, but please don’t make me recite my titles again. It’s no fun for anybody, and the only important one is ‘prince.’”
“And what about Sturmhond?” I asked.
“I’m also Sturmhond, commander of the Volkvolny, scourge of the True Sea.”
“Scourge?”
“Well, I’m vexing at the very least.”
I shook my head. “Impossible.”
“Improbable.”
“This is not the time to try to be entertaining.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Siege and Storm

“Don’t waste your breath, lovely.”
“But you don’t even know what I was going to say.”
“You were about to plead your case, tell me you need my help, you can’t pay me but your heart is true, the usual thing.”
I blinked. That was exactly what I’d been about to do. “But—”
“Waste of breath, waste of time, waste of a fine afternoon,” he said. “I don’t like to see prisoners mistreated, but that’s as far as my interest goes.”
“You—”
He shook his head. “And I’m notoriously immune to tales of woe. So unless your story involves a talking dog, I don’t want to hear it. Does it?”
“Does it what?”
“Involve a talking dog.”
“No,” I snapped. “It involves the future of a kingdom and everyone in it.”
“A pity,” he said, and took me by the arm, leading me to the aft hatch.
“I thought you worked for Ravka,” I said angrily.
“I work for the fattest purse.”
“So you’d sell your country to the Darkling for a little gold?”
“No, for a lot of gold,” he said. “I assure you, I don’t come cheap.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Siege and Storm

“Do that thing you do where you use too many words to say something simple and confuse the issue.”
― Leigh Bardugo, King of Scars

“Please recall that I am the pale neurasthenic one and you are the stern heroic one,” Matthew said to James. “It is very tedious when you mix up our roles.”
“So what is my role?” said Christopher.
“Mad inventor, of course,” said Matthew promptly. “And Thomas is the one with a good heart.”
“Lord, I sound dull,” said Thomas.”
― Cassandra Clare, Chain of Gold