Mal’s Reviews > How the King of Elfhame Learned to Hate Stories > Status Update

“And you think it was sunrise I was waiting for and not my queen.”

“So that’s the lesson of the story?
Everyone finds different lessons in stories, I suppose: Stories can justify anything. It doesn’t matter if the boy with the heart of stone is a hero or a villain; it doesn’t matter if he got what he deserved or if he didn’t. No one can reward him or punish him, save the storyteller. U told me once, stories change. U don’t have to live inside that one story forever”

““Let me guess,the troll woman says, the meaning of the tale is that love redeems us.”
You don’t think monster girls and wicked boys deserve love? Cardan asks her
“Is this a story about people getting what they deserve?” the troll woman asks.
“Wait and see,” Cardan says”

“Do you know why the Folk can tell stories?she asks, leaning forward and causing rust to fall around her chair. Her huge body makes it look sized for a child. We who can never tell a lie.How can we do it? She speaks as though she supposes he’s never asked himself that same question, but he has. Many times, he has.Cardan tries not to let his nerves show. Because stories tell a truth, if not precisely the truth”

“Why didn’t you hate everyone?” he asks. “Everyone, all the time.”

“Cardan considers that villainy takes many forms, and he is good at all of them.”

“Who doesn’t want to control fate?” Cardan answered, setting his coin to spinning again.
The Roach slammed his hand down on the table, breaking the pattern. “Remember, all you really get to control is yourself.”

“Choose a future, Balekin had commanded him when he’d first brought Cardan to Hollow Hall. But no one chooses a future. You choose a path without being certain where it leads.
Choose one way and a monster rends your flesh.
Choose another and your heart turns to stone, or fire, or glass.”

“I am nothing,” Cardan said, “if not dramatic”

“You hated it there, he reminded himself.
But his future stretched in front of him, and he no longer saw any path through it”