The Stolen Heir Quotes

“Whom have you fallen in love with?' I ask.

'Well, there was you,' the prince says. 'When we were children.'

'Me?' I ask incredulously.

'You didn't know?' He appears to be merry in the face of my astonishment. 'Oh yes. Though you were a year my senior, and it was hopeless, I absolutely mooned over you. When you were gone from Court, I refused any food but tea and toast for a month.'

I cannot help snorting at the sheer absurdity of his statement.

He puts a hand to my heart. 'Ah, and now you laugh. It is my curse to adore cruel women.”
― Holly Black, The Stolen Heir

“How appropriate to have my tongue cut out, when silence has been my refuge and my cage.”
― Holly Black, The Stolen Heir

“I imagine giving up. No more peering through windows, mourning the loss of a life that could never again be mine. No more hopeless desire. No more uncertain future. No more terror.”
― Holly Black, The Stolen Heir

“I couldn't stop being afraid of myself. Afraid of the monster I saw when I glimpsed my reflection in still pools, in windows...

But all I am is magic. Unmagic.

I am nothing. I am what is beyond nothing. Annihilation.

I am the unraveler. I can pull apart magic with a thought.”
― Holly Black, The Stolen Heir

“Fear is not love, but it can appear much the same.

So too, power.”
― Holly Black, The Stolen Heir

“I wonder what it would be like, to never have to be alone.”
― Holly Black, The Stolen Heir

“Vow she won't be harmed,' Oak says, breathing hard. 'Also me. I would like not to be harmed as well.”
― Holly Black, The Stolen Heir

“I do not need a tongue for her to read the rage in my eyes.”
― Holly Black, The Stolen Heir

“I am well-practiced at being unnoticed, especially here of all places.”
― Holly Black, The Stolen Heir

“I would say that you lost yourself along the way, but you lost yourself far before that,' the storm hag tells me as I pass her. 'Wake up, little bird.”
― Holly Black, The Stolen Heir

“Little queen,' Madoc says with a crooked smile. Despite not sharing blood with Oak, the mischief in his expression is familiar. 'All grown up and come to devour your maker. I can't say as I blame you.”
― Holly Black, The Stolen Heir

“I'm never killing her,' Oak says softly, so softly I almost don't hear.

'Then you better hope she doesn't kill you,' the general replies.”
― Holly Black, The Stolen Heir

“My greatest weakness has always been my desire for love. It is a yawning chasm within me, and the more than I reach for it, the more easily I am tricked. I am a walking bruise, an open sore. If Oak is masked, I am a face with all the skin ripped off. Over and over, I have told myself that I need to guard against my own yearnings, but that hasn't worked.

I must try something new.”
― Holly Black, The Stolen Heir

“Don't listen to him.' He shakes his head with an exasperated look at his father. 'He's full of bad old-guy advice.'

'Just because I'm bad,' Madoc says with a grunt, 'doesn't mean the advice is.”
― Holly Black, The Stolen Heir

“Oak's eyes widen satisfyingly at the sound of my voice. 'How are you speaking?'

'I used a shard of Mab's bones,' I tell him, and if I shiver a little at the memory, he cannot guess the reason.

'So you're saying that while my father and I were asleep, you found the reliquary- all by yourself- and then single-handedly subdued Lady Nore?' He laughs. 'You might have woken me. I could have done something, surely. Applauded at the right moments? Held your bag?'

I am flattered into a small smile.”
― Holly Black, The Stolen Heir

“Do you want-?' he starts, but she is already pushing up her dress.

'I want,' she says. 'That's my problem. I want and I want and I want.'

'What do you want?' he asks, voice soft.

'Everything. Charm me. Rip me open. Ruin me. Go too far.'

He shudders at her words, shaking his head against them.

She goes on, whispering against his skin. 'You cannot understand. I am a chasm that will never be full. I am hunger. I am need. I cannot be sated. IF you try, I will swallow you up. I will take all of you and want more. I will use you. I will drain you until you are nothing more than a husk.'

'Use me, then,' he whispers, mouth on her throat.

Then her lips are against his, and there is no more talking for a long time.”
― Holly Black, The Prisoner’s Throne

“I hate being unwell,' he says.

'You're not sick,' Jude tells him. 'You are recovering from being stabbed- or rather, throwing yourself on a knife.'

'You would have done the same for me,' he says airily.

'I would not,' Jude snaps.

'Liar,' Cardan says fondly.”
― Holly Black, The Prisoner’s Throne

“What if I am too much? If I need too much?' she asks, her voice very low.

He takes a deep breath, his smile gone. 'I'm not good. I'm not kind. Maybe I am not even safe. But whatever you want from me, I will give you.”
― Holly Black, The Prisoner’s Throne

“You could have kept me here, in Elfhame, but you let your sister send me away.' Wren turns her gaze to the flower, speaking to it instead of him. 'You gave me the first safe place- the only safe place I had after I was stolen from my unfamily- and then you took it from me.”
― Holly Black, The Prisoner’s Throne

“It seems quite the trick to tell the friendly snakes from the other ones.'

'Ah,' Oak says. 'They're all friendly snakes until they bite you.”
― Holly Black, The Prisoner’s Throne

“I'm not sure I trust anyone anymore. Not even myself.”
― Holly Black, The Prisoner’s Throne

“Stabbity stab, knife wife,' says Fala, with feeling. 'Traitor's blood is hot, but it still spills.”
― Holly Black, The Prisoner’s Throne

“You're not my enemy,' he says. 'You were never my enemy.'

'Yet you're standing there with a bare blade,' Wren reminds him.”
― Holly Black, The Prisoner’s Throne

“I am not your enemy, but if you can't help me, the next time we meet, I might be.”
― Holly Black, The Prisoner’s Throne

“I know what it is to want something so much that you would rather have the shadow of it than nothing, even if that means you will never have the real thing. And love is not that.”
― Holly Black, The Prisoner’s Throne

“You can't just keep throwing yourself at things as though you don't matter.'

'She matters more,' he says.”
― Holly Black, The Prisoner’s Throne

“Come back to me.”
― Holly Black, The Prisoner’s Throne

“I thought love was a fascination, or a desire to be around someone, or wanting to make them happy. I believed it just happened, like a slap to the face, and left the way the sting from such a blow fades. That's why it was easy for me to believe it could be false or manipulated or influenced by magic.

'Until I met you, I didn't understand to feel loved, one has to feel known. And that, outside of my family, I had never really loved because I hadn't bothered to know the other person. But I know you. And you have to come back to me, Wren, because no one gets us but us. You know why you're not a monster, but I might be. I know why throwing me in your dungeon meant there was still something between us. We are messes and we are messed up and I don't want to go through this world without the one person I can't hide from and who can't hide from me.

'Come back,' he says again, tears burning the back of his throat. 'You want and you want and you want, remember? Well, wake up and take what you want.”
― Holly Black, The Prisoner’s Throne

“You should probably stop staring at her like you never saw a naked girl with wings before.”
― Holly Black, The Prisoner’s Throne

“I know what you think' Oak says. 'That you're not whom I should want.'

She ducks her head, a faint flush on her cheeks.

'It's true you inspire no safe daydream of love,' he tells her.

'A nightmare, then?' she asks with a small, self-depreciating laugh.

'The kind of love that comes when two people see each other clearly,' he says, walking to her. 'Even if they're scared to believe that's possible. I adore you. I want to play games with you. I want to tell you all the truths I have to give. And if you really think you're a monster, then let's be monsters together.'

Wren stares at him. 'And if I send you away even after this speech? If I don't want you?'

He hesitates. 'Then I'll go,' he says. 'And adore you from afar. And compose ballads about you or something.”
― Holly Black, The Prisoner’s Throne