Status Updates From Wild Magic (Fool's Gold, #2)

Ending on a shameless quadruple cliffhanger. 🫢 I don’t love cliffhangers, but still…you gotta respect that Fisher has the nerve to go that route after 1000 pages.

‘Hesta had boasted to all who would listen that she would outlive them all, that she intended to survive Sur himself. But now she was stone dead w/ her feet set neatly together on the floor & her hands clasped around the carved dragonhead armrests. Her limbs were burned so the bones gleamed white ivory amongst all the char, but even as death had eaten at her, she had flinched from her seat not at all.’

—“I am told that albino babies are considered unlucky.” Virelai stood up, dusting off his gray robes & gazing disconsolately around. “Certainly, I don’t feel I carry much luck with me.”
—“Do you believe in luck?”
—“The Master always said a man’s luck was what he made it; & if that is so, I have surely been a poor craftsman.”

‘There was something in his expression Katla could not place. Not for the first time, it occurred to her that her twin—who had for most of her life seemed an extension of herself, as she was of him—had lately become a separate being entirely, as alien & unknowable as the strangest stranger.’

‘He smiled, & she remembered suddenly one bright morning when they had lain together as the sun slipped through the wagon’s shutters & turned those pale eyes a blazing gold & she had felt her belly flicker w/ desire & something akin to awe. A terrible sadness swept through her for what might have been, & she turned away, unable to bear the sight of him w/ all that brightness back in his face.’

‘It was not a union of equals, in any sense at all, for as cats & dogs, rats & whales could not interbreed, neither could any man get a child upon a creature so rare, exotic, & remote as the Rosa Eldi. Festrin wondered when the Rosa Eldi would recover her true self, regain her memories, bitter though they must surely be, & come back fully into the world. And shivered to think what would happen when she did.’

‘For her own sake—as well as his—she would have to lift some measure of the enchantment she had thrown over her lord & bring him back to himself. Then she would learn more of the actual nature of the man to whom she was bound. Then, & only then, she would learn the extent of her powers, & his response to her as a woman, rather than the sorceress she believed—& feared—she might truly be.’

‘The eye was fringed w/ lashes. It blinked as if startled at the intimate contact, & then Katla heard a strangely familiar voice in her head. It spoke her name, haltingly, pleadingly, so low as to be a subterranean rumble, coming not from the bizarre creature before her, but from a thousand & more miles away, deep below Elda’s surface. Then water filled the eye & it blinked again.’ ….That can’t be good.

‘Selen grinned. The expression felt unfamiliar to her; but it was as if everything in the world was unfamiliar to her now. She turned back to the mercenary leader. “I’ve no idea how to work an oar, but I’m sure you will teach me. My name is Selen Issian, & I can see that this will be the start of my new life. I hope you have something more practical that I can wear.” ….Drowning & amnesia work wonders.

‘Mam leaned over the gunwale again, catching her bleached & knotted braids in one hand & retching so horribly that anyone not privy to the situation might be forgiven for believing that a sheep was being slowly & grotesquely strangled.’

‘That was how this woman appeared to Katla: pale & cold & beautiful, with her finely drawn features & her willowy limbs, yet filled with some dangerous, invisible energy that at any moment might break its deceptively fragile bonds, flare out into the hall, & kill everyone there in an instant. She looked away, discomfited by this bizarre thought.’

‘Tanto had been well on his way to becoming the monster that the Goddess had, in her own inimitable way, now shown him to be, as if his ugly exterior had been turned inside-out to show his true face to the world, so that his erstwhile tanned, healthful, & darkly handsome exterior was displaced by a bloated, foul-smelling, evil-humored slug.’ …I love how JF grabs any chance to highlight Tanto’s vileness. 😂

‘She had learned that women used whatever wiles they possessed to attract men to them, & that the conquest of a king would be regarded by most as a triumph, not an undertaking to be entered into lightly or by a woman of no breeding or heritage. But for the Rosa Eldi, this was no game of statesmanship, no play for status. It was a gambit made simply for survival.’