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- "The public may forget how handsome I am." "I doubt it. Your face is on the money."
- Above all else, be thieves. Take the work of their enemies and turn it against them. It didn't matter if Ravka got to the technology first as long as they found ways to make it better.
- But the cuffs and hem of Genya's kefta were also detailed with golden thread to match the sun emblazoned over her eyepatch in remembrance of Alina Starkov. Nikolai had added the sun in ascendance to his own Lantsov heraldry, a gesture he could admit had been driven by the need to court public opinion as much as by personal sentiment. Still, it sometimes felt like Alina was trailing them from room to room, her presence as tangible as the heat of a summer sun, though the girl was long gone.
- Oh my girl i miss u
- "I may turn on you," said Zoya. "Oh, that's unavoidable. But you're immune to compliments." Zoya lifted a shoulder. "Then I suggest gifts of jewels and cash."
- After a long moment, Nikolai bobbed his chin. "You will have your churches." "They are the Saints' churches, Your Highness." "Then please inform the Saints."
- "Good to know. Regicide isn't on my list of preferred crimes." Genya's lips twitched in a smile. "You're saying you've never wanted to kill Nikolai?" "Oh, I have. I just don't want him to sleep through it."
- "We should send him to Ketterdam to preach to Kaz Brekker and the rest of those reprobates," suggested Zoya. Nikolai winced. "He'd certainly get his martyrdom."
- Kaz would break him
- "I think fatigue suits you, Zoya. The pallor. The shadows beneath your eyes. You look like a heroine in a novel." "I look like a woman about to step on your foot." "Now, now. You're managing remarkably well. And the smiling hasn't killed you yet." "Yet."
- "You can start by rubbing my feet," Zoya told the monk. "That's hardly an act of holy contrition," said Yuri. "You've never seen her feet," said Nikolai. Zoya tossed her hair over her shoulder. "A man once offered to sign over the deed to his summer home in Polvost if I would let him watch as I stepped on a pile of blueberries." "And did you?" asked Tamar. "Of course not. Polvost is a dump."
- "This country, Zhirov shouted. They can't even hang a man right."
- It had taken a long time for Zoya to think of Alina as anything other than a rival. She'd resented the orphan girl's gifts, envied her position with the Darkling. She hadn't understood what power meant then or the price that any of them would be forced to pay for it. After the war, Alina had chosen a life of peace and anonymity, bought with the charade of her death, but her name and her legend had only grown. Zoya was surprised to find she liked seeing Alina's name on churches, liked hearing it spoken in prayers. Ravka had given too much of its love to men like the Darkling, the Apparat, even the Lantsov kings. They owed a little of it to an orphan girl with no dress sense.
- There were times like this, when they worked side by side, when the rhythm between them was so easy that her minf would turn traitor. She would look at the tousle of Nikolai's gilded head bent over some correspondence or his long fingers tearing into a roll and she would wonder what it would be like when he finally married, when he belonged to someone else, and she lost these moments of peace. Zoya would still be Nikolai's general, but she knew it would be different. He would have someone else to tease and lean on and argue over the herring with.
- She could wither a man's balls just by raising a brow.
- Zoya
- We are always drawn to the lure of power, no matter the cost.
- What's the easiest way to steal a man's wallet? Kaz Brekker had once explained. Tell him you're going to steal his watch.
- Stop punishing yourself for being someone with a heart. You cannot protect yourself from suffering. To live is to grieve. You are not protecting yourself by shutting yourself off from the world. You are limiting yourself, just as you did with your training.
dec 31 2019 ∞
jan 2 2020 +
jan 2 2020 +