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

by Holly Black

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

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.

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

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

“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 hate you,” I breathe into his mouth. “I hate you so much that sometimes I can’t think of anything else.”

KSUVGUJKCYD GTFO IM SCREAMING

It hurts a little to watch, because Oriana no more gave birth to Oak than to me or Taryn, but she is very clearly Oak’s mother while she has steadfastly refused to be ours.

mommy issues i see

I hate seeing him with Nicasia. I hate the thought of his touching her. I hate that this is my plan, that I have no one to be angry with but myself. I am an idiot.

Pain makes you strong, Madoc once told me, making me lift a sword again and again. Get used to the weight.

Beside her, Locke is smiling his fox smile, and when he walks, he has a slight limp. For a moment, I just stare, my mind refusing to acknowledge what I’m seeing. Locke. It was Locke with the riders, Locke and his friends on the night before he was to be married. A bachelor party of sorts. I guess he decided to pay me back for threatening him. That, or perhaps he knew he could never stay faithful and decided to go after me before I came back for him.

I WAS SO SHOCKED LIKE WHATTTT #lockehateclub

he pulls me into the bed with him, rolling my body across him onto the heavily embroidered coverlets.

my heart was beaming at this point i was literally grinning

“Marry me,” he says. “Become the Queen of Elfhame.”

He slides my ruby ring off his finger. “I, Cardan, son of Eldred, High King of Elfhame, take you, Jude Duarte, mortal ward of Madoc, to be my bride and my queen. Let us be wed until we wish for it to be otherwise and the crown has passed from our hands.”