The Scarecrow Queen Quotes

“When will I be sure?”
“Sure of what?”
“Of me. Of who I am. Of what I’m here for. When will I know?”
“Never. You never will. No matter what happens. You will always have those moments of doubt and you will always make mistakes.”
― Melinda Salisbury, The Scarecrow Queen

“And that, my girl, is the secret. Quake all you must on the inside. But on the outside you must be stone. And you never know; with enough practice it might become the truth.”
― Melinda Salisbury, The Scarecrow Queen

“In every fairy tale there is a kernel of truth, and that is the truth of this one. For him, I am poison. I am his death. And I will deliver.”
― Melinda Salisbury, The Scarecrow Queen

“I’m tired of taking people’s sins on myself.
I’m tired of running away from everything.
I want to be like Errin. Like Nia. Like Sister Hope. I want to be the girl who fought a golem, the girl who slammed her hands on a table and told a room full of powerful women that I was going to fight, and to hell with them.
I survived the court of Lormere. I survived the journey to Scarron. I survived the Sleeping Prince’s raid on the Conclave. I am a survivor.”
― Melinda Salisbury, The Scarecrow Queen

“Sometimes he has me climb into his lap and sit there while he strokes my hair and tells me about the old days in Tallith. The seven towers of Tallith castle and the walkways between them, his life with his sister and his father. That sometimes he sounds so wistful and lonely that I forget for an instant that he’s a monster, lulled by his soft voice and his hands in my hair. Until he turns my face to his and I see him, and I recall exactly what he is, and the look in my eyes reminds him that he might control my body, but he can’t control my mind. Then he throws me to the ground and leaves me there for hours, unable to move until he wills it.”
― Melinda Salisbury, The Scarecrow Queen

“Scarecrow queen. Nothing but a dupe, alone in a field, hoping to keep the crows at bay.”
― Melinda Salisbury, The Scarecrow Queen

“Outside of dreams his skin is cold, lifeless, lie the clay he favors for his bodyguards. When he comes to her in her sleep, though, he's always warm. She'd like to keep him for her mind completely, but the vulnerability of sleep is as an open door to him; then he can wander through the hallways of her dreams at will. And though in her waking hours he can write a command and force her body to obey it, in dreams he cannot.....She often wonders whether he prefers the challenge of the dreams. Whether it's more fun for him to have to work to get her to do what he wants.”
― Melinda Salisbury, The Scarecrow Queen

“I think of everything we went through together, me and Lief: His coming to the castle. Our being together. His betrayal. HIs alliance with Aurek. And now I'll never know the truth of him. Perhaps, on the King's Road, he was trying to get me away, not hurt me. Perhaps the reason he hit me at the commune was to stop me from fighting and getting hurt. He gave me the Opus Mortem; he gave me back my note to him. He gave up his life, knowingly, to help us. Yet no one will ever know the whole truth, and he died a villain.”
― Melinda Salisbury, The Scarecrow Queen

“....because with Lief I don't need to pretend. With Lief I never have, and that's the most heartbreaking thing of all.”
― Melinda Salisbury, The Scarecrow Queen

“I learned the hard way that if you give a boy respect before he's done anything to earn it, he'll walk all over you.”
― Melinda Salisbury, The Scarecrow Queen

“Death always seemed so easy, I would read stories full of brave warriors and assassins and how they would deliver speedy deaths, and then walk away. They’d go to the taverns and drink with their friends, or go home to their lovers. They never said anything about how they felt afterwards. They took a life, and that was that. So easy. So . . . normal. And yet I don’t think I’m ever going to forget how it felt to kill that man. It’s one thing to cause a death, but another to deliver it. With hardly any pressure, or thought, I managed it. And I felt every inch of the knife sliding into him. I think I always will. They don’t tell you that part.”
― Melinda Salisbury, The Scarecrow Queen

“I was willing to make us into a proper family; I was willing to put the time into it. I’ve sent your brother to fetch your mother, despite needing him elsewhere, in a bid to make you happy. But I don’t have time to play with you any more. Your friends are not the only ones who understand you’re replaceable. You’re alive only because I permit it, and I am fast running out of patience with you. So tomorrow evening, you will present yourself in the Great Hall an hour after sunset. You will wear something very pretty, and your best smile. And we will dine together, companionably.You will not try to stab me. You will not spit at me, or slap me. You will behave with decorum. In short, sweetling, you will make yourself special to me, or I will remove you from my game board. I need your brother, and I need the philtresmith. But I don’t need you. Bear that in mind.”
― Melinda Salisbury, The Scarecrow Queen

“Less than a day has passed since I stood in this room and vowed to fight the Sleeping Prince. How sure of myself I was then, with Errin and Silas beside me; how righteous my anger was. It seemed so possible then, so simple. Silas would train the alchemists and their kin to fight and we’d all march on Lormere and defeat the Sleeping Prince. I thought we’d be like an avenging army in a story. I imagined people rallying to our cry, and that the fact we were on the side of good would assure our victory.
And then Aurek came, with my lover at his side, and proved that I am not only still a coward, but still a naïve, stupid fool too. And I’m supposed to save us from the Sleeping Prince.”
― Melinda Salisbury, The Scarecrow Queen