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

by Holly Black

“Power is much easier to acquire than it is to hold on to.”

His gift is to take a compliment and turn it into an insult, a jab that hurts more for the temptation to take it at face value.

“I have heard that for mortals, the feeling of falling in love is very like the feeling of fear. Your heart beats fast. Your senses are heightened. You grow light-headed, maybe even dizzy.”

She is a mirror, reflecting someone I could have been but am not.

Once upon a time, there was a human girl stolen away by faeries, and because of that, she swore to destroy them.”

The disturbing thing about Cardan is how well he plays the fool to disguise his own cleverness.

“For a moment,” he says, “I wondered if it wasn’t you shooting bolts at me.” I make a face at him. “And what made you decide it wasn’t?” He grins up at me. “They missed.”

“Kiss me again,” he says, drunk and foolish. “Kiss me until I am sick of it.”

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

I still feel the warm pressure of his fingers against my skin. Something is really wrong with me, to want what I hate, to want someone who despises me, even if he wants me, too. My only comfort is that he doesn’t know what I feel.

Something is really wrong with me, to want what I hate, to want someone who despises me, even if he wants me, too. My only comfort is that he doesn’t know what I feel.

“That you hate me,” he says, his voice hoarse. “Tell me that you hate me.”

“I want to tell you so many lies,”

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.

Not many things weep in Faerie. And the weeping things that are more common here—like banshees—are very dangerous.

“Yes, my sweet villain, my darling god.

“Sweet Jude. You are my dearest punishment.”