Kushiel's Dart (Phèdre's Trilogy #1)

by Jacqueline Carey

but this I know is true: When Love cast me out, it was Cruelty who took pity upon me.

Love as thou wilt.

the keeping of secrets from adults is oft the only power a child may hope to possess.

“All knowledge is worth having.” I knew it by rote; if Delaunay had a motto, that was surely it.

“That which yields, is not always weak. Choose your victories wisely.”

“Did you suppose Kushiel’s Dart had no barbs?”

Surely if we knew what bitterness fate held in store, we would shrink back in fear and let the cup of life pass us by untasted.

The Night Court taught me to serve, and Delaunay taught me to think; but from Melisande Shahrizai, I learned how to hate.

It is a fine line, in all of us, between civilization and savagery. To any who think they would never cross it, I can only say, if you have never known what it is to be utterly betrayed and abandoned, you cannot know how close it is.

It is my observation, though, that happiness limits the amount of suffering one is willing to inflict upon others.

I will wear it, until the day I throw it on the ground at Melisande Shahrizai’s feet. And then she will have her answer to her question: It is Kushiel’s Dart throws truer than Kushiel’s line!”

“You know,” Thelesis said in her soft, compelling voice, “I had a great-uncle who was a Cassiline. There is a name for what he did today.” She looked at me with those darkly luminous eyes in her wasted face. “They call it Cassiel’s Choice.”

It is a human failing, to attribute the best of motives to those we know the least, and the worst to those we love best;