How the King of Elfhame Learned to Hate Stories (The Folk of the Air, #3.5)

by Holly Black

Hate that was so bright and hot that it was the first thing that truly warmed him. Hate that felt so good that he welcomed being consumed by it. Not a heart of stone, but a heart of fire.

Villains were wonderful. They got to be cruel and selfish, to preen in front of mirrors and poison apples, and trap girls on mountains of glass. They indulged all their worst impulses, revenged themselves for the least offense, and took every last thing they wanted. And sure, they wound up in barrels studded with nails, or dancing in iron shoes heated by fire, not just dead, but disgraced and screaming. But before they got what was coming to them, they got to be the fairest in all the land.

It was only later that it disturbed him to think back on the shape of her boot in the soil, as though she was the only real thing in a land of ghosts.

And if, as he had floated in the cold darkness, his thoughts turned to the curve of an ear, the weight of a step, a blow that was checked before it could land, that didn’t matter. It meant nothing, and he should forget it.

A heart of stone can still be broken.”

Jude looked up at him, and in her eyes, he recognized a hate big enough and wide enough and deep enough to match his own. A hate you could drown in like a vat of wine.

“Why didn’t you hate everyone?” he asks. “Everyone, all the time.” “I hated you,” Jude reassures him, bringing her mouth to his.

Having a heart is terrible, but you need one anyway.

“You didn’t hear the story I told,” he goes on. “A shame. It featured a handsome boy with a heart of stone and a natural aptitude for villainy. Everything you could like.” She laughs. “You really are terrible, you know that? I don’t even understand why the things you say make me smile.” He lets himself lean against her, lets himself hear the warmth in her voice. “There is one thing I did like about playing the hero. The only good bit. And that was not having to be terrified for you.”