Ella

“Your highness—”
“Nikolai,” he corrected. “But I’ve also been known to answer to ‘sweetheart’ or ‘handsome.’”
Mal whirled, but I silenced him with a pleading look.
“You need to stop that right now, Nikolai,” I said. “Or I’ll knock those princely teeth out myself.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Siege and Storm

“Console yourself knowing that, should you ever punch me while wearing it, you’ll probably take my eye out. And I’d very much like you to. Wear it, that is. Not punch me.”
“Where did you get this thing?”
“My mother gave it to me before she left. It’s the Lantsov emerald. She was wearing it at my birthday dinner the night we were attacked. Curiously enough, that was not the worst birthday I’ve had.”
“No?”
“When I was ten, my parents hired a clown.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Ruin and Rising

“Why hunt the sea whip if you only meant to turn it over to Alina?”
“I wasn’t hunting the sea whip. I was hunting you.”
“That’s why you raised a mutiny against the Darkling?” I asked. “To get at me?”
“You can’t very well mutiny on your own ship.”
“Call it what you like,” I said, exasperated. “Just explain yourself.”
Sturmhond leaned back and rested his elbows on the rail, surveying the deck. “As I would have explained to the Darkling had he bothered to ask—which, thankfully, he didn’t—the problem with hiring a man who sells his honor is that you can always be outbid.”
I gaped at him. “You betrayed the Darkling for money?”
“‘Betrayed’ seems a strong word. I hardly know the fellow.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Siege and Storm