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“I am a chasm that will never be full. I am hunger. I am need. I cannot be sated. If you try, I will swallow you up. I will take all of you and want more. I will use you. I will drain you until you are nothing more than a husk.”
― Holly Black, The Prisoner’s Throne

“Would you consider actually marrying me?â€�

She looks up at him, obviously surprised and a little suspicious. “Really?�

He presses a kiss to her hair. “If you did, I would be willing to make the ultimate sacrifice to prove the sincerity of my feelings.�

“What’s that?� she asks, peering up at him.

“Become a king of some place instead of running away from all royal responsibility.�

She laughs. “You wouldn’t rather sit by my throne on a leash?�

“That does seem easier,� he admits. “I would make an excellent consort.�

“Then I’ll have to marry you, Prince Oak of the Greenbriar line,â€� Wren says, with a sharp-toothed smile. “Just to make you suffer.”
― Holly Black, The Prisoner’s Throne

“How appropriate to have my tongue cut out, when silence has been my refuge and my cage.”
― Holly Black, The Stolen Heir

“I couldn't stop being afraid of myself. Afraid of the monster I saw when I glimpsed my reflection in still pools, in windows...

But all I am is magic. Unmagic.

I am nothing. I am what is beyond nothing. Annihilation.

I am the unraveler. I can pull apart magic with a thought.”
― Holly Black, The Stolen Heir

“Do you want-?' he starts, but she is already pushing up her dress.

'I want,' she says. 'That's my problem. I want and I want and I want.'

'What do you want?' he asks, voice soft.

'Everything. Charm me. Rip me open. Ruin me. Go too far.'

He shudders at her words, shaking his head against them.

She goes on, whispering against his skin. 'You cannot understand. I am a chasm that will never be full. I am hunger. I am need. I cannot be sated. IF you try, I will swallow you up. I will take all of you and want more. I will use you. I will drain you until you are nothing more than a husk.'

'Use me, then,' he whispers, mouth on her throat.

Then her lips are against his, and there is no more talking for a long time.”
― Holly Black, The Prisoner’s Throne

“I imagine giving up. No more peering through windows, mourning the loss of a life that could never again be mine. No more hopeless desire. No more uncertain future. No more terror.”
― Holly Black, The Stolen Heir

“Fear is not love, but it can appear much the same.

So too, power.”
― Holly Black, The Stolen Heir

“Vow she won't be harmed,' Oak says, breathing hard. 'Also me. I would like not to be harmed as well.”
― Holly Black, The Stolen Heir

“I wonder what it would be like, to never have to be alone.”
― Holly Black, The Stolen Heir

“Have you no feelings to drown?'

Wren looks down. 'No,' she says. 'Nothing I have would I ever want to give away.”
― Holly Black, The Prisoner’s Throne

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

“I am well-practiced at being unnoticed, especially here of all places.”
― Holly Black, The Stolen Heir

“Killing is my thing,' he tells her. 'You should get your own thing.”
― Holly Black, The Prisoner’s Throne

“What if I am too much? If I need too much?' she asks, her voice very low.

He takes a deep breath, his smile gone. 'I'm not good. I'm not kind. Maybe I am not even safe. But whatever you want from me, I will give you.”
― Holly Black, The Prisoner’s Throne

“I would say that you lost yourself along the way, but you lost yourself far before that,' the storm hag tells me as I pass her. 'Wake up, little bird.”
― Holly Black, The Stolen Heir

“Little queen,' Madoc says with a crooked smile. Despite not sharing blood with Oak, the mischief in his expression is familiar. 'All grown up and come to devour your maker. I can't say as I blame you.”
― Holly Black, The Stolen Heir

“My greatest weakness has always been my desire for love. It is a yawning chasm within me, and the more than I reach for it, the more easily I am tricked. I am a walking bruise, an open sore. If Oak is masked, I am a face with all the skin ripped off. Over and over, I have told myself that I need to guard against my own yearnings, but that hasn't worked.

I must try something new.”
― Holly Black, The Stolen Heir

“I thought love was a fascination, or a desire to be around someone, or wanting to make them happy. I believed it just happened, like a slap to the face, and left the way the sting from such a blow fades. That's why it was easy for me to believe it could be false or manipulated or influenced by magic.

'Until I met you, I didn't understand to feel loved, one has to feel known. And that, outside of my family, I had never really loved because I hadn't bothered to know the other person. But I know you. And you have to come back to me, Wren, because no one gets us but us. You know why you're not a monster, but I might be. I know why throwing me in your dungeon meant there was still something between us. We are messes and we are messed up and I don't want to go through this world without the one person I can't hide from and who can't hide from me.

'Come back,' he says again, tears burning the back of his throat. 'You want and you want and you want, remember? Well, wake up and take what you want.”
― Holly Black, The Prisoner’s Throne

“Oak's eyes widen satisfyingly at the sound of my voice. 'How are you speaking?'

'I used a shard of Mab's bones,' I tell him, and if I shiver a little at the memory, he cannot guess the reason.

'So you're saying that while my father and I were asleep, you found the reliquary- all by yourself- and then single-handedly subdued Lady Nore?' He laughs. 'You might have woken me. I could have done something, surely. Applauded at the right moments? Held your bag?'

I am flattered into a small smile.”
― Holly Black, The Stolen Heir

“What shall I do with you, Prince of Elfhame?' Wren asks.

'If you mean for me to be your pet,' he says, 'there's no reason to return me to my pen. My leash is very secure, as you have shown. You have only to pull it taut.”
― Holly Black, The Prisoner’s Throne

“Why not whip me now?' he asks, a challenge in his voice.

'Spending a night dreading what will come in the morning is it's own punishment.' She pauses. 'Especially as you now know your own hand can be turned against you.'

Oak looks directly into her eyes. 'Why are you keeping me at all, Wren? Am I a hostage to command? A lover to be punished? A possession to be locked away?'

'That,' she said, bitterness in her voice, 'is what I am trying to figure out myself.”
― Holly Black, The Prisoner’s Throne

“Love can be lost, and I am done with losing.”
― Holly Black, The Prisoner’s Throne

“You fall in love with the ease of someone slipping into a bath,' she tells him. 'And I imagine you extricate yourself with somewhat more drama, but no less ease.”
― Holly Black, The Prisoner’s Throne

“You could have kept me here, in Elfhame, but you let your sister send me away.' Wren turns her gaze to the flower, speaking to it instead of him. 'You gave me the first safe place- the only safe place I had after I was stolen from my unfamily- and then you took it from me.”
― Holly Black, The Prisoner’s Throne

“You're not my enemy,' he says. 'You were never my enemy.'

'Yet you're standing there with a bare blade,' Wren reminds him.”
― Holly Black, The Prisoner’s Throne

“I am not your enemy, but if you can't help me, the next time we meet, I might be.”
― Holly Black, The Prisoner’s Throne

“I know what it is to want something so much that you would rather have the shadow of it than nothing, even if that means you will never have the real thing. And love is not that.”
― Holly Black, The Prisoner’s Throne

“Come back to me.”
― Holly Black, The Prisoner’s Throne

“I know what you think' Oak says. 'That you're not whom I should want.'

She ducks her head, a faint flush on her cheeks.

'It's true you inspire no safe daydream of love,' he tells her.

'A nightmare, then?' she asks with a small, self-depreciating laugh.

'The kind of love that comes when two people see each other clearly,' he says, walking to her. 'Even if they're scared to believe that's possible. I adore you. I want to play games with you. I want to tell you all the truths I have to give. And if you really think you're a monster, then let's be monsters together.'

Wren stares at him. 'And if I send you away even after this speech? If I don't want you?'

He hesitates. 'Then I'll go,' he says. 'And adore you from afar. And compose ballads about you or something.”
― Holly Black, The Prisoner’s Throne

“I want,â€� she says. “That’s my problem. I want and I want and I want.â€�
“What do you want?� he asks, voice soft.
“Everything. Charm me. Rip me open. Ruin me. Go too far.”
― Holly Black, The Prisoner’s Throne