“I thought it was supposed to be impossible to sneak up on you. Eyes of a hawk and ears of a wolf and all.”

“Your face will freeze like that, you know, Kat," Raffin said helpfully to Katsa."Maybe I should rearrange your face, Raff," said Katsa."I should like smaller ears," Raffin offered."Prince Raffin has nice, handsome ears," Helda said, not looking up from her knitting. "As will his children. Your children will have no ears at all, My Lady," she said sternly to Katsa.Katsa stared back at her, flabbergasted."I believe it's more that her ears won't have children," began Raffin, "which, you'll agree, sounds much less—”

“It made Fire so angry, the thought of such a medicine, a violence done to herself to stop her from creating anything like herself. And what was the purpose of these eyes, this impossible face, the softness and the curves of this body, the strength of this mind; what was the point, if none of the men who desired her were to give her any babies, and all it ever brought her was grief? What was the purpose of a woman monster?”

“I hear you're supposed to be good at manipulating people. Try a little harder to make me like you, all right? I'm the queen. Your life will be nicer if I like you.”

“Dear Brigan, she thought to herself. People want incongruous, impossible things. Horses do, too.”

“You’re crying.”“I’m not.”“Right,” he said mildly. “I suppose you got rained on.”

“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.”