India 🍉

“Everyone wants to see a witch punish someone for stealing from her. A witch is a kind of justice in the world. It makes for a fine story. No one wants to admit the truth, for all it stares them plainly in the face."

"What's that?"

"Steal from a woman long enough, and a witch is what she'll become.”
― Amal El-Mohtar, The River Has Roots

“You want me to stay the heir while you two go off somewhere? And then I can step down, be de-princed, whatever?”
“Exactly that,” says Cardan.
“Like on a vacation?”
Cardan snorts.
“I don’t understand,” Oak says. “Where are you going?”
“A diplomatic mission,” says Cardan, leaning back on the cushions. “After that last little rescue, Nicasia has demanded we honor our treaty, meet her suitors, and witness the contest for her hand and crown. And so Jude and I are headed to the Undersea, where we will go to a lot of parties and try very hard not to die.”
― Holly Black, The Prisoner’s Throne

“But that is the nature of grammar—it is always tense, like an instrument, aching for release, longing to transform present into past into future, is into was into will.”
― Amal El-Mohtar, The River Has Roots

“(What is a river but an open throat; what is water but a voice?)”
― Amal El-Mohtar, The River Has Roots