The Winner's Crime Quotes
"Sometimes the emperor was generous. She’d seen audiences with him where he’d given senators private land in new colonies, or powerful seats in the Quorum. But she’d also seen how his generosity tempted others to ask for just a little more. Then his eyes went heavy-lidded, like a cat’s, and she would see how his gifts made people reveal what they really wanted."
"Her blood felt laced with black powder. How could she have forgotten what it was like to burn on a fuse before him? He looked at her, and she knew that she had remembered nothing at all."
"The way you’ve been talking is not you. Say what you want about me, about what happened between us, about the shape of the sun and the color of the grass and any other truths in this world you want to deny. Deny everything until the gods strike you down. But you can’t say that I don’t know you."
"I knew you would. You knew that I knew. Where is the lie? I’ve never felt that there was a lie on your lips. Please, Kestrel. Please. Don’t lie."
"What I want…" He muttered the words. Then his voice steadied and came clear. "My friend’s name is Thrynne. He cleans. Floors, mostly."
"This is the year of money, she remembered. She had indeed planned on going to the library earlier today, as her maid had informed Verex. She’d hoped to research the Herrani gods, then thought better of it."
"It’s disgusting. They’re not slaves anymore, Jess. They’re independent members of the empire."
"She remembered Cheat, the Herrani leader. Arin had answered to him, followed him. Loved him. Yes, she knew that Arin had loved him."
"But self-preservation had never been Arin’s strong suit."
"The glass against her back was a blaze of cold. She shivered. He was so close. All she had to do was uncurl her fingers from the balustrade and lean forward into him. It felt inevitable, like an overfull cup ready to spill."
"I trust my ability to ruin you if you don’t."
"How can the inconsequence of your life not shame you?"
"The palace was at her back, high on its hill, and she was here, winding through the city’s wealthy quarter with its haughty town houses and blazing oil lamps. The cobblestone streets were marbled sheets of ice. Carriages moved slowly, but Kestrel didn’t. She skidded through this quarter. She wanted no part of it."
"The streets became a network of alleys: the Narrows."
"It shattered with noise tumbling from the flung-open door of a tavern."
"Kestrel’s delight in the cold wore off around the time she reached the wharf."
"Her heartbeats flew, one right against the other, like flipped pages of a book."
"The world went luscious, and slow, and still."
"I’m not sure what to think about this request for my permission for you to leave."
"The river mattered. The music in her head mattered."
"Her pulse sped with fear of herself, fear of her choices, her certainty."
"I had no idea how long I had been standing there."
"Sometimes you think you want something, when what you need is to let it go."
"I hate being outnumbered," he said, and drank.
"No, you did. You saved the thing in me that decided I would run away again."
"There's a fine line between medicine and poison," he said.
"You escaped from Herran. You alerted us to the rebellion."
"Look how you’ve grown. I remember the day you were born. I could hold you with one hand. You were the world’s best thing. The most precious."
"I prefer to think of myself as an optimist."
"The word we want for you is not optimist. Nor, I think, fool. It is desperate."
"Sometimes, she went to them first. Sometimes, she lied to herself along the way."
"It’s not so serious," said the emperor, but the expressions on the physician’s face—and Verex’s—disagreed.
"That’s what we do. It’s who we are. If we can’t take what we want with our own hands, we don’t deserve to win it."
"What will my father think if he watches that minister watch you?"
"For my father’s life? It is not enough."
"Every medicine has its risks. We use a medicine because its benefit outweighs potential harm."
"I’m not sure you do. Kestrel, your dressmaker is dead."
"I’m tired of thinking clearly. Arin should know about me. He should have always known."
"The emperor wants Herran back. He wants it emptied of Herrani."
"It was better for him that he didn’t. You believed that. I did, too."
"I could kill you now. What a serpent you are."