Hidden Huntress Quotes
"My voice faded into silence, though the memory of it seemed to haunt the theatre as I slumped gracefully, trusting that Julian would catch me, however much he might not want to."
"The stage was smooth and cool against my cheek, a blessed relief against the heat of hundreds of bodies packed into one place."
"You seem distracted tonight, Julian said, hauling me unceremoniously to my feet. And about as emotive as my left boot."
"Despite her parents’ protestations, my oldest and dearest friend had insisted on coming to Trianon with me."
"How much torture could a person endure before breaking?"
"A constant reminder of my failure to help him."
"I’m not going to stop loving him for the sake of improving the caliber of my performance."
"I’ve had a lot of time to think and to come to terms with my failures. To accept that I am, and have never been more than, a puppet in my father’s machinations."
"If I had been betrayed or outwitted – that I could accept. But..."
"He used my love as a weapon against me. As a weapon against my cause. He took the one thing I had that was good, and he corrupted it."
"She gave up everything for me," I said, closing my eyes. "She died for me."
"That’s impossible." But even as I said the words, hope rose in my heart.
"Taking deep measured breaths, I clambered out of bed, dragging my blankets with me."
"I woke up afraid," I mumbled, looking away for shame of how childish I sounded.
"Women of the nobility, or at the very least, of quality, are limited by propriety in what they can discuss. I am not."
"I am not getting any younger, and soon he will tire of me and look for a replacement. You could be my successor."
"Such is the nature of men, Cécile. They will keep you only so long as there isn’t something better within their reach; then they will discard you."
"The true power of a promise was not something humans gave entirely enough thought to."
"You only pretended to care so we’d assist with your plans."
"I didn’t know where he was keeping the witch," I said. "If I had known..."
"I’m sorry," I said, searching her face for some sign that this was an act.
"Friends?" she scoffed. "Friend is just a label you give your favorite tools. I see that now."
"Someone is posing as her, but Anaïs is dead."
"She was wearing flat shoes," I said, as though that would explain everything.
"No one, with the exception of Cécile, my father, me, and now Marc, knew that Anaïs was dead."
"You had to make a choice," he finally replied. "You chose. Now you have to live with the consequences."
"I really don’t know why I care," he said. "Cared. What matters is asses in seats."
"You want to know where Chris and I were last night? We went to see the troll king. And he tortured Tristan in front of me until I gave my word I’d find the witch for him. A binding promise."
"Every so often, we passed a building that had collapsed from an earthshake, its bones picked away for wood to burn until nothing remained but the foundation."
"Human filth, waste, and desperation. It made me think about what the King had said to me on the beach. It made me think he was right."
""This isn’t a safe part of town to be in, especially after dark," Chris muttered, eyeing the brothel on our left, shrieks of laughter coming from its open doors."
""I felt the magic, and even if I hadn’t, I saw what the potion did to Julian," I said. "One minute, he was devastated about my mother’s pending retirement, and the next, he couldn’t have cared less. Impassioned one moment, pure cold logic the next.""
""People fall out of love every day without the help of magic. Half the time they fall back in love in a matter of days.""
""Good boy." He patted my cheek, and I found myself too astonished at his audacity to move out of the way."
""I’m many things, but coy isn’t one of them.""
""Be bold, Cécile," I whispered to myself, trying to ignore the shake in my hands. "Be brave.""
""God in heaven," I swore, cutting him off. "If she could fix all the ailments troubling the girls at the opera house with witchcraft, she’d be the richest woman in Trianon for it. But clearly not.""
""You are Cécile de Troyes, star of the opera stage and Trianon’s new favorite ingénue.""
"If you find reason inside yourself to live, your will and your word might cease to be at odds and your mind once again be whole."
"I prayed to fate and the stars that I hadn’t made another choice that I’d have cause to regret."
"Winter was approaching, the ground hard with frost and the air laced with the scent of coming snow."
"No humans were allowed into Trollus anymore, so Esmeralda had lost her only contact with her nieces. All because of me."
"It needs to be something avant-garde, maybe a little scandalous…"
"Sometimes what we are looking for is right in front of us, but more often, I think, one must look long and hard, for she will not reveal herself so easily."
"We’ll be watching every move you make, Cécile. Be sure of it."
"Unlike your father, I do not suffer such abominations to live."
"Have a care, Tristan. She is of an ill temper."
"The entire city, perhaps even the entire Isle dancing to his tune."
"But you didn’t hate them. Quite the opposite, you were in love with one of them."
"Everyone thought you were dead. Do you have any idea what it felt like knowing that my best friend had died because of me?"
"I meant it, Sabine. If she leaves because of anything that you’ve done, I’ll quit. And not just the company – I’ll walk away from you, and I won’t look back."
"Holding her back was akin to containing a storm."
"Please hurry. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d desired my father’s presence, but I needed him now."
"I was looking to redecorate anyway," my aunt replied.
"I’m sorry, love. This was not your fault – it was mine."
"To her? Nothing." I lifted my head to meet her gaze. "That was my father’s rage you witnessed..."
"I don’t know," I admitted. "It’s possible that no matter how hard we fight that we will still lose. But..."
"I should think the witch would know the name of the individual she was cursing, but I suppose it isn’t necessary."
"Magic requires something to be given up," Catherine said. "Only the dark arts require nothing from the practitioner..."
"Using blood for even one spell can put any woman on a slippery slope, and – it always catches up to you in the end."
"But that doesn’t mean we give up. It doesn’t mean we stop fighting."
"The sounds of a mob growing began to permeate the walls of the palace not long after curfew broke..."
"Punish him!" someone shouted. "He needs to pay for what he’s done!"
"Killing him will not absolve you of your guilt."
"I have very, very few pleasures in life. I will not begrudge myself this one. Not as long as I am king."
"It’s frustrating, isn’t it, when your pawns don’t play by your rules?"
"Everything had come to pass as I had anticipated."
"They say nothing worth having comes easily. If you want the crown, you’re going to have to take it."
"I’ll take it when I’m good and ready, and that’s a promise."
"I think that if you let her die because of what you have not done, you will find that guilt is not such an easy thing to escape."
"It can be broken by will; by an intense desire to see the curse ended driven like a hammer with the force of magic."
"Go!" Sabine said once I was free. "Catch her! I’ll be fine."
"I’ll get my own ankles untied and go warn Chris," she said, shoving me forward.
"It’s gold," I said. "Take it, and you’ll be ahead in the bargain."
"I knew with painful certainty what would happen if I submitted: the trolls were doomed."
"You can’t kill me," she whispered. "You can’t… He’ll punish you."
"I believe ‘thanks’ is the word you’re grasping for," Marc replied, his voice dry.
"You never do." I held my ground long enough to watch them disappear into the city, then I met Marc’s gaze. "Let’s get to work."
"Good luck." Chris’s voice was rough. "I’m going to go see if I still have a job."
"Let Tristanthysium be free of Anushka’s curse."
"I’ve little time," I said. "But there is something I need to say to you before the… the end."
"Tristan… What has happened?" Marc’s voice was tense, his words clipped. "Is it her?"
"Cécile isn’t dead yet. Don’t be the one who causes that to change. You need to ration your strength, give her a chance to succeed."
"When you were taking me through the labyrinth, I had a dream – a dream that I did not remember until tonight. I was in a place of endless summer filled with creatures more colorful than any rainbow. And I met a man who made my eyes burn as though I were staring into the sun, and he gave me the name of that which I most desired. Your name."
"If I know nothing that’s because you’ve chosen to keep me in the dark. As you so often do."
"The words left a burning sensation in their wake as so often the truth does."
"Never in my life had I felt so hopeless, and the result was that I was ill-equipped to deal with it."
"What I’d prefer is to be with you, though that I’ve made you think otherwise indicates I probably don’t deserve the privilege."
"I love you above all things in this world or any other, and yet there are times when I think I subject you to the worst of me, and I can’t explain why."
"The only solution was an impossible one, and yet here we stand. Alive."
"Everything’s a mess in Trollus. It’s worse than when you left."
"I’m sorry," I whispered, kissing her cheek gently before sitting back on my heels.
"Risky," my father muttered. "For one, she might actually kill you, and two, you’re dependent on a woman who hasn’t made a mistake in five hundred years doing just that."
"We need your help, Chris," I said. "Cécile and I can’t accomplish this alone, and you and Sabine are the only people in Trianon we can trust."
"You are too perfect. In the way you look, in the things you say. It does not make me like you, and it certainly does not make me trust you."
"Trolls don’t like to be in anyone’s debt," I told him. "So if it isn’t gold, it’s something else. Name it."
"There are no words I can offer that will earn your forgiveness, Sabine, but perhaps my actions going forward might prove my worth."
"The only thing worse than being talked about is being not talked about."
"Is not the pleasure of seeing her perform payment enough?"
"Don’t you dare claim that you did it for me when we both know you did it to control me."