Bitterblue (Graceling Realm, #3)

by Kristin Cashore

And so Bitterblue followed Leck’s name into her first story room.

BACON IMPROVED THINGS dramatically.

‘I suppose the little queen is safe without you today, for her first men can do what you would. Once you learn cutting and stitching, do you ever forget it, whatever comes between? Even if Leck comes between? I worry for her. It’s my dream that the queen be a truthseeker, but not if it makes her someone’s prey.’”

Do something heroic in front of an audience. Knock a child into the river while no one’s looking and then rescue him.

“Because when truths disappear, they leave behind blank spaces, and that is also dangerous.”

“Lady Queen,” he said patiently, “among my less attractive qualities is a certain pride that serves me well when I discover that a woman I love never would, and never could, give me the things I want.”

A whole other language. It was an alien concept to Bitterblue, so alien that she wanted to believe it was Leck’s own personal language, one he’d made up for cipherment purposes.

“Into the river!” Bitterblue could not, for the moment, comprehend this. “Why does everyone throw every troublesome thing into the river?”