Lady Nore Quotes

“Oak puts a hand on my arm. I startle.

'You all right?' he asks.

'When they first took me from the mortal world to the Court of Teeth, Lord Jarel and Lady Nore tried to be nice to me. They gave me good things to eat and dressed me in fancy dresses and told me that I was their princess and would be a beautiful and beloved queen,' I tell him, the words slipping from my lips before I can call them back. I occupy myself with searching deeper in the closet so I don't have to see his face as I speak. 'I cried constantly, ceaselessly. For a week, I wept and wept until they could bear it no more.'

Oak is silent. Though he knew me as a child, he never knew me as that child, the one who still believed the world could be kind.

But then, he had sisters who were stolen. Perhaps they had cried, too.

'Lord Jarel and Lady Nore told their servants to enchant me to sleep, and the servants did. But it never lasted. I kept weeping.'

He nods, just a little, as though more movement might break the spell of my speaking.

'Lord Jarel came to me with a beautiful glass dish in which there was flavoured ice,' I tell him. 'When I took a bite, the flavour was indescribably delicious. It was as though I were eating dreams.'

'You will have this every day if you cease you're crying,' he said.

'But I couldn't stop.

'Then he came to me with a necklace of diamonds, as cold and beautiful as ice. When I put it on, my eyes shone, my hair sparkled, and my skin shimmered as though glitter had been poured over it. I looked wondrously beautiful. But when he told me to stop crying, I couldn't.

'Then he became angry, and he told me that if I didn't stop, he would turn my tears to glass that would cut my cheeks. And that's what he did.

'But I cried until it was hard to tell the difference between tears and blood. And after that, I began to teach myself how to break their curses. They didn't like that.

'And so they told me I would be able to see the humans again- that's what they called them, the humans- in a year, for a visit, but only if I was good.

'I tried. I choked back tears. And on the wall beside my bed, I scratched the number of days in the ice.

'One night I returned to my room to find the scratches weren't the way I remembered. I was sure it had been five months, but the scratches made it seem as though it had been only a little more than three.

'And that was when I realised I was never going home, but by then the tears wouldn't come, no matter how much I willed them. And I never cried again.'

His eyes shone with horror.”
― Holly Black, The Stolen Heir

“She's going to want to wear your skull for a hat,' Oak warns. There is an uncomfortable shifting among the ex-falcons. Perhaps they are recalling their own choice to denounce her, their own punishment. 'And Cardan is going to laugh and laugh when she does.”
― Holly Black, The Stolen Heir

“The prince doesn't even know what you are,' she says with a glance toward Oak. 'Barely one of the Folk. Nothing but a manikin, little more than the stock left behind when a changeling is taken, a thing meant to wither and die.'

Despite myself, my gaze goes to Oak. To see if he understands. But I cannot read anything but pity on his face.

I might be only sticks and snow and hag magic, but at least I did not come from her.

I am no one's child.

That makes me smile, showing red teeth.”
― Holly Black, The Stolen Heir

“I do not need a tongue for her to read the rage in my eyes.”
― Holly Black, The Stolen Heir

“Wren, you have plenty of reasons not to trust me right now, but I do intend to stop Lady Nore. And I believe we can. Though I plan on bringing back Madoc, we will still have gone a deed no one can deny was of service to Elfhame. Whatever trouble I will be in, you'll be a hero.'

I am not sure anyone has considered me that, not even the people I've saved. 'And if I decide to part ways? Are you going to tie my hands and drag me along with you?'

He looks at me with trickster eyes beneath arched golden brows. 'Not unless you scratch me again.'

'Why do you want to help him?' I ask. Madoc had been willing to use Oak as a path to power, at the least.

'He's my father,' he says, as though that should be enough.”
― Holly Black, The Stolen Heir

“You are mortal. You will not last long.'
...
'That's what mortal means,' I say with a sigh that I don't have to fake. 'We die. Think of us like shooting stars, brief but bright.”
― Holly Black, The Queen of Nothing

“...seeing the stick creatures with their bits of flesh made me all too aware of how easy it would be to harvest human parts from cities like she might take rocks from quarries, and carve armies from forests.”
― Holly Black, The Stolen Heir

“The wise old hag told them to gather up snow and form it into the shape of a daughter.

'They did this. The girl they made was delicate in form, with eyes of snow, and lips of frozen rose petals, and the sharply pointed ears of their people. When they finished sculpting her, they smiled at each other, captivated by her beauty.'
...
'When my breath blew across the girl, the spark of life lit within her, and they could see her eyelashes twitch, her tresses shiver. The child began to move. Her little limbs were slender and nearly as pale a blue as the reflection of the sky on the snow she'd been made from. Her hair, a deeper blue, like the flowers that grew nearby. Her eyes, that of the lichen that clung to rocks. Her lips, the red of that fresh-spilled blood.”
― Holly Black, The Stolen Heir

“...she still wears her arrogance like armour...”
― Holly Black, The Stolen Heir

“Do you think he will protect you now? You're useless. The heir to Elfhame has no reason to spend any further time with an untutored savage of a girl. But think, you wouldn't remember him. You wouldn't even have to remember yourself.'

'I'm not half as practical as you suppose,' Oak says. 'I like many useless things. I've been called useless myself from time to time.”
― Holly Black, The Stolen Heir