The Wicked King (The Folk of the Air, #2)

by Holly Black

She liked it when she was angry, too. Angry was better than scared.

“Power is the ability to get what you want. Power is the ability to be the one making the decisions.

It was good to be hugged. Even by a monster.

the sun is high in the sky, trying my hardest to do just that. That’s the problem with a puppet government: It’s not going to run itself.

There is only now. There is only tomorrow and tonight and now and soon and never.

“If you’re the sickness, I suppose you can’t also be the cure.”

Once, a position as grand as seneschal would have been beyond my wildest dreams. Now it seems a humiliation. Power is infectious. Power is greedy.

my heart thundering in my head, I can barely think. “But I believe it is only that her beauty is… unique.” Cardan pauses for more laughter from the crowd, greater jeering. “Excruciating. Alarming. Distressing.”

“You can fight anything. Winning, though, that’s something else again.

“Tell me that you hate me.” “I hate you,” I say, the words coming out like a caress. I say it again, over and over. A litany. An enchantment. A ward against what I really feel. “I hate you. I hate you. I hate you.” He kisses me harder. “I hate you,” I breathe into his mouth. “I hate you so much that sometimes I can’t think of anything else.” At that, he makes

“I want to tell you so many lies,”

of all the things he’s ever done to me, making me like him so much is by far the worst.

They do not need to deceive humans. Humans will deceive themselves.

Kill him, a part of me says, a part I remember from the night I took him captive. Kill him before he makes you love him.

my sweet villain, my darling god.

You are my dearest punishment.”