The Iron Queen Quotes

“Athena shifted under my gaze and cleared her throat. “She’s brave, your wife.”
I didn’t so much as blink. “She’s stronger than she looks.”
Athena nodded. “With Poseidon on our side, we have a shot. Zeus may actually die by the end of this.”
“Everyone dies eventually.” I inclined my head toward her. “And if they’re really, really lucky, they haven’t done anything to piss me off.”
― Kaitlin Bevis, The Iron Queen

“There’s a reason there are seven stages of grief. It takes time for the mind to process tragedy. Grief, true grief, needs the cushion of denial and anger and blame to cope.”
― Kaitlin Bevis, The Iron Queen

“Some Greek idiot believed the ring finger on the left hand had an artery that led straight to the heart. And they bought it. How such an intelligent species could be so uninformed about their own physiology for so much of their existence was beyond me. Humans scoffed at the idea of gods and turned their backs on us, leaving us all to die. Yet some ridiculous notion that wearing a chunk of metal on a certain finger bound two souls until death stuck. Figures.”
― Kaitlin Bevis, The Iron Queen

“No one fears death more than immortals. Humans adjust to their lot in life little bits at a time. They’re introduced to the concept with goldfish, then move up to puppies, ancient relatives and reckless friends, each victim closer to them than the last. Death follows them through life, making itself known. Numbing them bit by bit until there is nothing left in them but resignation. We had no such preparation. We were never meant to die.”
― Kaitlin Bevis, The Iron Queen

“Athena: "What makes you human? What’s different about you
from every other creature out there?”
“We can think?” a boy wearing a loose button up shirt and khakis called
from the front row.
“We have emotions?” a girl asked, pushing her glasses up the bridge of
her nose with her pinkie.
“We’re self-aware? Like, we think about thinking and time and stuff?”
Gods, when had college kids become so uncertain? All their replies ended
with an upward lilt like they were asking a question instead of supplying
an answer.
After a couple of students gave faltering answers, I [Hades] called from the back
of the room, voice strong and certain, “They can lie.”
Athena jerked her head toward me, panic flashing in her eyes as she
scanned the rows of students. When her gaze locked on mine, the color
drained from her face. “Class dismissed.”
― Kaitlin Bevis, The Iron Queen

“Cassandra caught my quizzical look and shrugged. “Problems adjusting. You just missed the latest of the new souls. It would seem none of us are quite as good with people as you are.”
That was an understatement. With any luck, Cassandra hadn’t caused any psychological scarring with her “Yeah, you’re dead, get over it” speech. She wasn’t a people person. Ordinarily, I greeted the new souls and took special care to deal with any “adjustment problems.” I enjoyed that part of my work. It was one of the few good deeds I could credit myself with. But as much as I’d love to tell myself otherwise, I wasn’t settling in the souls out of the goodness of my heart. Just lack of better alternatives. The other gods had difficulties relating to humans. But those difficulties were nothing compared to the problems the humans in my court had relating to each other. Souls lose something the longer they’re dead. They forget what it was like to worry, to be scared, to be human. Just yesterday, I’d caught Cassandra telling a frightened new soul I’d gone through a dark phase back when Dante passed through, but not to worry. I hadn’t gone off my meds for centuries.
Fucking Dante.”
― Kaitlin Bevis, The Iron Queen

“The Titans knew the abominations we would become. The horrific deeds we would commit. All the ways we would go on to abuse our creations. They’d tried to end our existence, to stop us, and in return we orchestrated their murder. We’d killed our parents. And then we created a species in our image, acting surprised when they spent every waking moment improving upon their methods of murder and mass destruction. We did that. We made them sadistic and twisted and broken. We were gods. Every bad thing that had ever happened lay at our feet. There was no one else to blame.”
― Kaitlin Bevis, The Iron Queen

“Hades would break the world for her. She meant too much to too many people. I”
― Kaitlin Bevis, The Iron Queen: The Persephone Trilogy, Book 3