lauren ♡

“Cardan’s fingers dig into my back. He’s trembling, and whether it is from ebbing magic or horror, I am not sure. But he holds me as though I am the only solid thing in the world.”
― Holly Black, The Queen of Nothing

“The next time you want to make a point,' Jude says, 'I beg you not to make it so dramatically.'
His shoulder hurts, and she may be right about the iron poisoning. He certainly feels as though his head is swimming. But he smiles up at the trees, the looping electrical lines, the streaks of clouds.
'So long as you're begging,' he says.”
― Holly Black, How the King of Elfhame Learned to Hate Stories

“It's you I love. I spent so much of my life guarding my heart. I guarded it so well that I could behave as though I didn't have one at all. Even now, it is a shabby, worm-eaten, scabrous thing. But it is yours. You probably guessed as much. But just in case you didn't.”
― Holly Black, The Queen of Nothing

“I first started liking you when we went to talk to the rulers of the low Courts,” I say. “You were funny, which was weird. And when we went to Hollow Hall, you were clever. I kept remembering how you’d been the one to get us out of the brugh after Dain’s coronation, right before I put that knife to your throat.”
He doesn’t try to interrupt, so I have no choice but to barrel on.
“After I tricked you into being the High King,” I say. “I thought once you hated me, I could go back to hating you. But I didn’t. And I felt so stupid. I thought I would get my heart broken. I thought it was a weakness that you would use against me. But then you saved me from the Undersea when it would have been much more convenient to just leave me to rot. After that, I started to hope my feelings were returned. But then there was the exile—” I take a ragged breath. “I hid a lot, I guess. I thought if I didn’t, if I let myself love you, I would burn up like a match. Like the whole matchbook.”
“But now you’ve explained it,” he says. “And you do love me.”
“I love you,” I confirm.
“Because I am clever and funny,” he says, smiling. “You didn’t mention my handsomeness.”
“Or your deliciousness,” I say. “Although those are both good qualities.”
― Holly Black, The Queen of Nothing