The Bone Witch Quotes
"Let me be clear: I never intended to raise my brother from his grave, though he may claim otherwise. If there’s anything I’ve learned from him in the years since, it’s that the dead hide truths as well as the living."
"There was never anything unnatural or mysterious about me... My only claim to strangeness was that I read fiercely, learned thirstily."
"You think in the same way men drink, Tea," my father once said, "far too much—under the delusion it is too little."
"Sometimes you can’t help who you love or for how long."
"The Dark are greedy runes. Draw them once, and they ruin you for any other magic."
"Hearts only last when you put in work to make them last."
"Bone witches were not a respectable trade... Bone witches did not truly serve the Eight Kingdoms as they claim, because they dabbled in the Dark runes just like the False Prince and his Faceless followers."
"You can’t make the better of the dead, sweet child," she said, "though I reckon death could make the better of us."
"The secret is to find pride in both, Tea—the good as well as the bad. It will help you do what needs to be done, regardless of what they see you as."
"Using the Dark runes for the first time made you more attuned to magic. That is all."
"It howled, and the sound was terrifyingly human."
"It will always feel good, at least at first. But the more you draw in such a short time, the harder it will be to put up barriers in your mind, until all you will concern yourself with is drawing more power until you die from the darkrot."
"Fire is a cleansing tool, and to leap over it is to clean themselves of all sickness and evil in anticipation of the coming year."
"The city rich are like the jungle apes; they show off their red bottoms and beat their chests because they fear to be culled from the herd if they show weakness."
"You are not yet an asha, and you already understand the games kings and queens play? I certainly don’t."
"Asha also means ‘truth,’ and truth is the only weapon you need."
"Because I like how the power to wield the magic feels."
"These parties were the bread and butter of many Houses, where nobles and others who could afford it pay asha to bring life to what might otherwise be boring functions."
"But asha policy required that they all wear the traditional hua when attending functions at an official capacity, including entertaining guests within Ankyo."
"Despite the books I had about asha, I knew very little about the workings of the Willows until Lady Mykaela took me aside one day to explain it all to me."
"She was quite adamant, however, that all who wished to be asha be strong in the Runic magic, a law still enforced today."
"In war, asha influence outcomes with their prowess in fighting, with their skills. But sometimes a beautiful voice can change a kingdom better than a sword ever could."
"I was commanded to prepare many of her favorite dishes, only for her to claim she had ordered no such thing when brought before her and then demand that the cost of these meals be deducted from the Valerian’s investment of me."
"Fox remained the one bright spot of my days."
"I felt like I had no one looking out for me at the Valerian, and I even began to resent Lady Mykaela for it."
"She held out her hand to show me a bezoar that glittered gold in the light."
"I could barely concentrate on what he was saying. I kept my gaze on my lap, trying to focus. This felt wrong. I had never felt so lightheaded before."
"Let go. With a strength I didn’t know I possessed, I pushed at the immensity of that crushing force with my mind. I let go."
"There is no greater strength than the ability to understand and accept your own flaws."
"We can endure any amount of sadness for the people we love."
"Never give your heartsglass away to anyone. Anyone else versed in magic can do you harm with it. People will never be what you make of them, but at least your own heart stays yours and true."
"Choosing which spells to wear is like playing a game, except you are forced to decide your moves without knowing what your opponent might bring to the fight."
"You can be the most powerful witch in the land, but you will always have a weakness, and that will always make you believe you have no power when someone exploits it."
"But if there is one thing I will forgive for the mess you have made, no matter how indirectly your responsibility in it lies, it is that you are the strongest asha I have seen in recent times."
"The trick is to remember that we’re all here to make you look prettier, so it can’t be that bad a thing."
"It was an accident. It couldn’t be helped, I’m sure."
"Nevertheless," Mistress Parmina said, "my apprentice was somewhere she was not supposed to be, and your cha-khana suffered as a result. House Valerian pledges to pay for any damages made during her visit."
"I hope Mistress Hestia will understand…" "Mistress Hestia shall," Mistress Parmina assured her. "I will personally inform her of my decision."
"I will be nearby," he promised, slipping away before Mistress Parmina could command him to leave.
"You will begin your lessons tomorrow. Lady Shadi and I will accompany you to your classes. In the meantime, I find it insulting how gracelessly you stood after Mistress Peg accepted your apology. That is not the way asha should stand."
"Too slapdash, too quick. It looks as if you want it to be over. Do it again."
"Go to sleep, Tea. Easy for you to say, I thought grouchily just before I drifted off."
"It’s less about feeling sorry for the Falling Leaf’s proprietress and more about showing off. It’s about power and how much influence you can sway on behalf of your House."
"Become an asha if you must," Fox whispered to me, "and should you ever get to run the Valerian, promise me you won’t inherit that screeching voice and prune face."
"You’re early. That’s a very good skill to have for your training."
"Duty means doing something not because you like it but because you’re supposed to," he reminded me.
"I’m not doing anything the asha haven’t approved. It’s combat training with army soldiers, Tea. You can’t expect me to get out of every fight blemish free."
"Happiness." The Forger tapped at the bottle and took a small sniff to ensure it was sealed again. "At least, how happiness is defined if you’re a young mother with three small children. I collect memories like these in the course of my work."
"Sadness is a popular commodity to sell," the Forger said, "And it is a common ingredient in my work, so fortunately the supply rarely outstrips the demand."
"Our hearts can rarely be replaced, but the upside is keeping our memories intact, no matter how much of them I draw out. We don’t forget. Can’t tell if that’s a blessing or a curse most days."
"The nobles can afford it. All the backstabbing and politics and scheming, I imagine, having their hearts taken away by some rivals and such. They’ll want a new heart quick for that before they go completely in someone else’s power."
"You cannot compel the dead to obey you when they have no intentions of doing so. Hate and anger can linger long after death; it is a powerful emotion that is harder to let go than life."
"Memories from breaking free of a possession—that’s difficult enough to find."
"I won’t be here forever, and Junior’s slow on the uptake but good enough with his hands to work the forge."
"Damn fool’s got a bleeding heart of his own, would build hearts for anyone who asked if they cried hard enough."
"Wear this on your person at all times, and anyone else seeking to control your mind will find it an uphill battle."
"Everything happened so quickly that it’s hard to know where to begin."
"There is no better way to learn to swim than when you are struggling to keep your head above water."
"It’s not every day that you get to see an asha punching royalty in the face, even if it’s dead royalty."
"Reparations have been made, and if anything, you’ve actually bolstered ours among the people."
"When you live in a district full of asha, most Ankyons learn to shrug things off."
"For once, Lady Mykaela was allowed to leave the house, though kept under close watch."
"I kept to my room and practiced the day’s lesson."
"It was probably the same duck that had bitten me, but for some reason, it didn’t feel like retribution at all."
"‘He’s my brother,’ I corrected her, offended on his behalf."
"‘Just as your familiar will break like a twig until he is blooded, so will you be reduced to embers if you draw in too much of the Dark.'"
"‘This is your familiar as he is at the moment. He receives no strength other than the rapport you share with him.'"
"‘I’ve seen Mykkie wither and age under the heavy burden of her responsibilities, Tea. I will not see you follow the same path.'"
"‘You can use emotions to win a fight without taking a step,’ Lady Hami said."
"‘Support magic is almost always forgotten when one refers to spellbinding.'"
"‘Peacetime does not excuse the reality that there are numerous factions there out for blood.'"
"‘Because they think they know better. Kings nowadays play more to the politics than to any real strategies.'"
"‘Thank you. True fear is harder to find than you might think,’ he said conversationally, patting my hand."
"‘Don’t worry your pretty head over it, my dear,’ the old man said kindly. ‘You Dark asha have my respect and my trust, and I wish that counted as much as it used to.'"
"‘He’ll live. I have said worse things to his face,’ Councilor Ludvig snorted, unswayed."
"‘You must learn to make this by the end of the day,’ she explained, ‘for I will have very little time to teach you when the week is out.'"
"I am sure there will be more than enough to do here to occupy your time."
"Only after I punched a new hole in her house, using one of two wooden cows I had commissioned at the carpenter’s. It went through her wall like a plunger through churned butter."
"Forgive us, Envoy Mu’awwan." I never knew Polaire could gush so. "I told Tea here to come in her most outrageous hua, so you can point out all that is wrong with it, to teach her."
"We’re wearing practically the same thing!" I hissed at Polaire when Envoy Mu’awwan excused himself to go to the bathroom. "How can he find fifty-seven things wrong with mine but not with yours?"
"Exactly. Would you say that your family too or your friends in Knightscross can be described in this manner?"
"Everyone is a puzzle, Tea, made of interlocking tiles you must piece together to form a picture of their souls. But to successfully build them, you must have an idea of their strengths as well as their weaknesses. We all have them."
"For the first time since his death, Fox was warm and smelled of home."
"As it should be with your familiars," Lady Mykaela had told me. "It is the same on their end, and their instinct will always be to seek you out to protect you at the first signs of danger."
"But my family are nothing like that at all! The people in Knightscross aren’t—" and then I paused. I thought about their distrust of bone witches, their hostility toward me. Were they any different, after all, than the cold treatment Lady Mykaela and I received from strangers in Kneave?
"I would like to stay for as long as Tea wants me to," he said. His eyes were brighter, smiling at the corners, like he had found more reasons to laugh at the world.
"The trick an asha must learn is to read people accurately. So if a Tresean comes in and consumes a stupid amount of kolscheya and grunts at everyone in the room, then he is a typical Tresean to whom small talk will have no effect, and if you understand Treseans, you will wait patiently until he finally chooses to speak."
"But despite his treachery, he could not find it in his heart to kill his brother."
"You are no better than Hollow Knife, and given the chance to do harm to me and Blade that Soars, you shall do so again."
"I will not banish you from the world as Hollow Knife has been banished, but no longer will you be able to use life’s magic for your own."
"And you will never be able to give your heart away, like I joined mine to his, without taking most of your strength and your power."
"In this way, you will learn what it is like to be completely and utterly alone."
"Lady Brijette was supposed to enter. She’s missed her cue!"
"The only role I can hope to fulfill for the black brothers is as a fresh corpse on the plains."
"I will not survive Deathseeker training. I know it."
"I can do so much more here in the Willows, and you will have no reason to regret it."
"It felt wrong somehow, for Dark asha to grant others a second chance at life, but not to her asha-sisters and Deathseeker brothers."
"If there is another way to tame these creatures without Dark asha giving up our body and soul, raising and killing daeva for the rest of our lifetimes while the years tick by, then I will do it."
"I think it’s a bit difficult for me to be unexpectedly half a foot shorter, weigh no more than ninety pounds, and have a mean right sweep."
"The beasts slept outside the cave, black, misshapen outlines against the heavy twilight."