Steff Fox’s Reviews > The Poisoned King > Status Update

His mind was not the kind that could imagine the shape and depth of hers.

Her friendship felt rare—not because she was a princess, but because she seemed to offer friendship in the way that a bird does; cautiously, and then all at once. It was like being befriended by an insistence.

"Don't be so melodramatical."

"Don't you like poets?"
"Well, I ate one once, so in that sense, yes. In the traditional sense, not at all. I find rhyming insulting."

"He helps me with basic duties: cleaning, cataloguing. In exchange, I do not eat him."

"Anyone who tries to wreak havoc in my library will have their liver plucked out. The same applies to anyone who folds the pages over or writes in the books."

"The future is not given, it is made. The loquillan show one possible future—the future that you dream of—and how to achieve it. It is not the future itself; there is nothing that can tell the future with certainty, not in the whole Archipelago."

"He said it was a terrible curse, to love something you'll never have enough of."

"So I looked into its history—"
"I helpeds," said Ratwin. "I have three doctorates of philosophies."
"Ratwin."
"Fine. I sharpened the pencilings with my teeths."

"Christopher insisted that we come to get you," he said, "before we go in search of breakfast. We are both hungry. I suggested we eat a small portion of you while you slept, but he refused."