“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.”

“For now, Lady Queen," he said, "allow us to continue to obey you. But give us honorable instructions, Lady Queen," he said, turning a flushed face to hers. "Ask us to do honorable things, so that we may have the honor of obeying you.”

“Madlen came to sit beside her on the bed. "Lady Queen," she said with her own particular brand of rough gentleness. "It is not the job of the child to protect her mother. It's the mother's job to protect the child. By allowing your mother to protect you, you gave her a gift. Do you understand me?”

“Katsa sat in the darkness of the Sunderan forest and understood three truths. She loved Po. She wanted Po. And she could never be anyone's but her own.”

“THE ARRANGEMENTS AT the green house had become slightly peculiar, for Roen had decided to take the house back from Brigan and give it to Fire.‘I can understand you taking it from Brigan, if that’s your pleasure,’ Fire said, standing in the small green kitchen, having this argument with Roen for the third or fourth time. ‘You’re the queen, and it’s the queen’s house, and whatever Brigan may accomplish, he’s highly unlikely ever to be queen. But Nash will have a queen someday, Roen, and the house by rights should be hers.’‘We’ll build her something else,’ Roen said with a careless sweep of her arm.‘This is the queen’s house,’ Fire repeated.‘It’s my house,’ Roen said. ‘I built it, and I can give it to whomever I want, and I don’t know anyone who needs a peaceful retreat from the court more than you do, Fire—’‘I have a retreat. I have a house of my own in the north.’‘Three weeks away,’ Roen snorted, ‘and miserable half the year. Fire. If you’re to stay at court then I want you to have this house, for your own daily retreat. Take Brigandell and Hannadell in if you like, or send them out on their ears.’‘Whatever woman Nash marries is already going to resent me enough—’Roen spoke over her. ‘You are queenly, Fire, whether you see it or not. And you’d be spending most of your time here anyway if I left the house to Brigan; and I’m through with arguing. Besides, it matches your eyes.”

“She didn't want to go far, just out of the trees so she could see the stars. They always eased her loneliness. She thought of them as beautiful creatures, burning and cold; each solitary, and bleak, and silent like her.”

“Madlen: 'It's a relief to me, Lady Queen, that in your own pain, you take no interest in hurting yourself.'Bitterblue: 'Why would I? Why should I? It's foolish. I would like to kick the people who do it.'Madlen: 'That would, perhaps, be redundant, Lady Queen.”