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“No mortal ear could have heard the kelpie passing through the night, for the great black hooves of it were as soundless in their stride as feathers falling.”
― Mollie Hunter, The Kelpie's Pearls

“He was waiting there for her beside the pool - a great black horse with shoulders like polished ebony and the water still streaming from his mane and tail. Morag stood and looked at him for a long moment. The great horse looked at her and never moved.

“Will you trust me?â€� he had asked her the evening before, and she had trusted him then. She trusted him now, and so she walked towards him. She grasped his mane, and still the black horse never moved. She stood on a stone beside him, swung herself onto his back, and the black horse moved.”
― Mollie Hunter, The Kelpie's Pearls

“Only an idiot would trust a Kelpie this close to the water. Getting on its back with the scent of the sea in the air would be a fast, painful means of suicide, and I'm not a fan of pain.”
― Seanan McGuire, Rosemary and Rue

“Oooooooh,' says Jack, correctly interpreting my silence for a confession. 'Is he your lover? Is this a ballad we're in?'

'A murder ballad maybe,' I growl.

'No doubt, by the end,' he says. 'I wonder who will survive to compose it.”
― Holly Black, The Stolen Heir

“Riding upon the back of a waterhorse - what mortal had ever stayed in such a seat for so long? On a horse made of cold currents and liquid convergences, jests and trickery - pressed against a hide like the burnished sea of midnight, thing look different to the rider.”
― Cecilia Dart-Thornton, The Battle of Evernight

“You have an unusual voice,' he says. 'Raspy. Quite fetching, really.'

'I damaged my vocal cords a long time ago,' I inform him. 'Screaming.'

Oak steps between us, and I am grateful for the reprieve. 'What a fine gentleman you make, Jack.'

Jack turns to the prince, his sinister smile dropped back into place. 'Oak and Wren, Wren and Oak. Delightful. Named for woodland creatures, but neither of you so simple.' He glances at Tiernan and Hyacinthe. 'Not nearly as simple as these two.”
― Holly Black, The Stolen Heir

“Have you come to gloat?' I ask, frustrated. 'To stop me?' I am not sure how powerful a kelpie is out of the water and in the shape of a man.

'To surprise you,' he says. 'Aren't surprises wonderful?”
― Holly Black, The Stolen Heir

“What do you want?' I ask, digging in my pockets. I take out the swan-shaped scissors I stole from Habetrot. 'These are pretty.'

'Put them away,' he scoffs. 'It would be an insult to be stabbed by those.'

'Then do not court that fate,' I growl softly...”
― Holly Black, The Stolen Heir

“That alone would be Eddie's triumph in all this; that she had taught the kelpie suffering.”
― D. Morgenstern

“All the waters in the world are joined.”
― A.G. Slatter, All the Murmuring Bones

“You had the privilege of carrying the prince a ways, and that's that. Whatever we see fit to give you in recompense, be it a coin or a kick in the teeth, you'll take it and be grateful.”
― Holly Black, The Stolen Heir

“She flailed in spinning darkness. Up and down blurred and warped, and she was drowning-

Spindly hands slammed into her chest, one wrapping around her throat as her back hit something soft and silty. The bottom.

No, she wouldn't end like this, helpless as she'd been that day against the Cauldron-

Lips and teeth collided with her mouth, and she screamed as the kelpie kissed her. His black tongue shoved into her mouth, tasting of foul meat.

For a heartbeat, she wasn't beneath the water, but against a woodpile in the human lands, Tomas's hard mouth crashing into hers, his hands pawing at her-

Nesta struggled to pull her head away, to free her mouth, but air filled her lungs. As if the kelpie had breathed into her. As if he wanted her alive a little longer, to prolong her pain.

The kelpie withdrew, and Nesta had enough sense to shut her aching, brutalised mouth, to trap in that breath he had given her. To not question how such a thing was even possible.

The kelpie's hands ripped at her body, tearing away every weapon with unerring aim, as if he did not need to see in this darkness, as if those large black eyes could pick up any trickle of light like some deep-sea creature. Her entire body went stiff and unmoving, each brutal touch entitled and furious and delighting in her fear.

When he had disarmed her, her lungs were burning again, and she felt that thin male body pushing her into the bottom once more as he shoved his mouth to hers.

She gagged, but opened for him, letting him fill her mouth with another life-giving breath that had nothing to do with kindness. His tongue wriggled like a worm against hers, and his spindly, too-large hands ran down her breasts, her waist, and when she gagged again, fighting against her sob, his laugh puffed through her lips.

He pulled away, rows of teeth ripping at her mouth as he did, and she shook when he lingered, stroking at her hair. His little prize- that was what the touch said. How he would make her suffer and beg before the end. She had escaped the monsters of the human realm only to find the same ones above the wall. Had escaped from Tomas only to wind up here, raging as she had then.”
― Sarah J. Maas, A ​Court of Silver Flames

“She had become more, had become something that did not need air to breathe, something that did not understand hate or love or fear or grief.

It had scared her more than anything else. That utter lack of feeling. How good it had felt to be so removed.
...
She had been aware, yes. Had killed the kelpie because she wished it dead. But all the weight, the echoing thoughts, the hatred and guilt that sliced her like knives- they had vanished.

And it had been so seductive, so freeing and lovely, that she'd known the Mask had to be destroyed. If only to save herself from it.
...
Everyone else would be safe from its temptation and power- except for her. The one who most needed to be barred from it.”
― Sarah J. Maas, A ​Court of Silver Flames

“How did the kelpie snare you?'

Nesta's scratched-up throat bobbed. 'I grew... nervous when you- both of you- didn't come back.' The silence in the room was palpable. 'I went to find you.'

Cassian didn't dare say that he'd only been gone thirty minutes. Thirty minutes and she'd been in a panic like that? 'We wouldn't have left you,' he said carefully.

'I wasn't afraid of being left. I was afraid both of you were dead.'

That she kept emphasising both of you tightened his chest. He knew what she was carefully avoiding saying. She'd been worried enough that she'd ventured into Oorid's perils for him.”
― Sarah J. Maas, A ​Court of Silver Flames

“He said: Are you my sacrifice, sweet flesh? How pale and young you are. Tell me, are they resuming the sacrifices to the water once more? And when she didn't respond, the kelpie said, No gods can save you. I shall take you, little beauty, and you shall be my bride before you are my supper.”
― Sarah J. Maas, A ​Court of Silver Flames