It's hard to wake from a nightmare when the nightmare is real.

You can't help whom you love, Lady. Nor can you know what it's liable to cause you to do.

Brigan threw his head back and smiled at the sky. "Well said, Lady. The world may be falling to pieces, but at least the lot of us can have a bath.

You're the queen, and it's the queen's house, and whatever Brigan may accomplish, he's highly unlikely ever to be queen.

Lady Katsa, is it?" "Yes, Lord Prince." "I've heard you have one eye green as the Middluns grasses, and the other eye blue as the sky." "Yes, Lord Prince." "I've heard you can kill a man with the nail of your smallest finger." She smiled. "Yes, Lord Prince." "Does it make it easier?" "I don't understand you." "To have beautiful eyes. Does it lighten the burden of your Grace, to know you have beautiful eyes?

Children are geniuses.

Sneaking was a kind of deceit. So was disguise. Just past midnight, wearing dark trousers and Fox's hood, the queen snuck out of her own rooms and stepped into a world of stories and lies.