“I hate hiding how much the stupid things he did hurt me, but I hated the idea of him finding out even more.”

“I didn't think he was in love with me and I had no idea what I felt for him, but he wanted me, and maybe that was enough.”

“How did you fare with the Queen?" he asked."I have no idea," I said honestly. "Everything she said was perfectly nice, but the whole time she was looking at me as if I were something her dog spit up.”

“I told him the story of the day I'd been mending pottery with one of the maids in the kitchen at Keramzin, waiting for him to return from one of the hunting trips that had taken him from home more and more frequently. I'd been fifteen, standing at the counter, vainly trying to glue together the jagged pieces of a blue cup. When I saw him crossing the fields, I ran to the doorway and waved. He caught sight of me and broke into a jog.I had crossed the yard to him slowly, watching him draw closer, baffled by the way my heart was skittering around in my chest. Then he'd picked me up and swung me in a circle, and I'd clung to him, breathing in his sweet, familiar smell, shocked by how much I'd missed him. Dimly, I'd been aware that I still had a shard of that blue cup in my hand, that it was digging into my palm, but I didn't want to let go.When he finally set me down and ambled off into the kitchen to find his lunch, I had stood there, my palm dripping in blood, my head still spinning, knowing that everything had changed.Ana Kuya had scolded me for getting blood on the clean kitchen floor. She'd bandaged my hand and told me it would heal. But I knew it would just go on hurting.”

“Do you blame me for every mistake I made? For every girl I tumbled? For every dumb thing I've said? Because if we start running tallies on stupid, you know who's going to come out ahead.”

“Get moving. We need to find that stag so I don’t have to chop your head off.”“I never said you had to chop my head off,” I grumbled, rubbing the sleep from my eyes and stumbling after him.“Run you through with a sword, then? Firing squad?”“I was thinking something quieter, like maybe a nice poison.”“All you said was that I had to kill you. You didn’t say how.”I stuck my tongue out at his back, but I was glad to see him so energized, and I suppose it was a good thing that he could joke about it all. At least, I hoped he was joking.”

“There is something more powerful than any army. Something strong enough to topple kings, and even Darklings. Do you know what that thing is?”I shook my head, inching away from him.“Faith,” he breathed, his black eyes wild. “Faith.”