Swati

“Cardan looks at me as though he's never seen me before. He looks at me as though no one has ever spoken to him like this. Maybe no one has.”
― Holly Black, The Cruel Prince

“It’s lovely loving, isn’t it? In fact, I find it almost better, because being loved sometimes embarrasses me, but loving is a gift.”
― Sheila Hancock

“I am tired of caring,” I say. “Why should I?”

“Because they could kill you!”

“They better,” I say to her. “Because anything less than that isn’t going to work.”
― Holly Black, The Cruel Prince

“What they don’t realize is this: Yes, they frighten me, but I have always been scared, since the day I got here. I was raised by the man who murdered my parents, reared in a land of monsters. I live with that fear, let it settle into my bones, and ignore it. If I didn’t pretend not to be scared, I would hide under my owl-down coverlets in Madoc’s estate forever. I would lie there and scream until there was nothing left of me. I refuse to do that. I will not do that.”
― Holly Black, The Cruel Prince