Crooked Kingdom (Six of Crows, #2)

by Leigh Bardugo

She was the Queen of Mourning, and in its depths, she would never drown.

We learn to hold our heads as if we wear crowns. We learn to wring magic from the ordinary. That was how you survived when you weren’t chosen, when there was no royal blood in your veins. When the world owed you nothing, you demanded something of it anyway.

She smiled then, her eyes red, her cheeks scattered with some kind of dust. It was a smile he thought he might die to earn again.

“Inej, I could only kill Pekka’s son once.” He pushed the door open with his cane. “He can imagine his death a thousand times.”