"So she steeled herself. "I have never told anyone this story. No one in the world knows it. But it's mine, she said, blinking past the burning in her eyes, "and it's time for me to tell it.Rowan leaned back on the rock, bracing his palms behind him."Once upon a time, she said to him, to the world, to herself, "in a land long since burned to ash, there lived a young princess who loved her kingdom . . . very much.And then she told him of the princess whose heart had burned with wildfire, of the mighty kingdom in the north, of its downfall and of the sacrifice of Lady Marion."

"Sometimes, the wicked will tell us things just to confuse us"to haunt our thoughts long after we've faced them."

"And he will never know what it is to look up at the night sky and wish."

"What we think to be our greatest weakness can sometimes be our biggest strength."

"Because all the monsters have been let out of their cages tonight, no matter what court they belong to. So I may roam wherever I wish until the dawn."

"Some people just need a high-five. In the face. With my knives."

"Not realizing that I craved his warmth, his nearness, until he was gone."

"If you cannot find the peace, then at least hone the anger..."

"I'm not married, he said softly, "because I can't stomach the idea of marrying a woman inferior to me in mind and spirit. It would mean the death of my soul."

"You're back," Sam said, as if he couldn't quite believe it.She lifted her chin, stuffing her hands in her pockets. "Obviously."He tilted his head slightly to the side. "How was the desert?"There wasn't a scratch on him. Of course, her face had healed too but... "Hot," she said. Sam let out a breathy chuckle."

"Sam," she said."I'm trying!""Sam," she repeated."No," he spat, hearing her tone. "No!"He began screaming for help then. Celaena pressed her face to one of the holes in the grate. Help wasn't going to come-not fast enough."Please," Sam begged as he beat and yanked on the grate, he tried to wedge another dagger under the lid. "Please don't."She knew he wasn't speaking to her.The water hit her neck."Please," Sam moaned, his fingers now touching hers. She'd have one last breath. Her last words."Take my body home to Terrasen, Sam," she whispered. And with a gasping breath, she went under."

"The Court of Dreams.The people who knew that there was a price, and one worth paying, for that dream. The bastard- born warriors, the Illyrian half breed, the monster trapped in a beautiful body, the dreamer born into a court of nightmares...And the huntress with an artist's soul."

"To escape death, she'd become death."

"She had a flicker of memory from a time when, just for a moment, she'd been free; when the world had been wide open and she'd been about to enter it with Sam at her side. It was a freedom that she was still working for, because even though she'd tasted it only for a heartbeat, it had been the most exquisite heartbeat she'd ever experienced."

"That sounds a lot like, ' I have more secrets that I'm going to spring on you whenever I feel like stopping your heart dead in your chest."

"We're all broken," Mor said. "In our own ways - in places no one might see."

"You can't write, yet you learned to hunt, to survive. How?I paused with my foot on the threshold. "That's what happens when you're responsible for lives other than your own, isn't it? You do what you have to do.He was still sitting on the table, still straddling that inner line between the here and now and wherever he'd had to go in his mind to endure the fight with the Bogge. I met his feral and glowing stare."You aren't what I expected-for a human."

"You said you didn't care what I thought. Or what I did. Or if I died, if I'm not mistaken.""I lied! And you know I lied, you stupid bastard!"

"Fate had kept me alive just to get to this point, just to see if I was listening."

"All I wanted was to return to - to the people around me. I wanted it badly enough I didn't have room for fear. The worst had happened, and the darkness was calm and quiet. It did not seem like a bad thing to fade into. But I wanted to go home."

"He thinks he'll be remembered as the villain in the storyShe snorted."But I forgot to tell him, I said too quietly, opening the door, "that the villain is usually the person who locks up the maiden and throws away the key."Oh?I shrugged, "He was the one who let me out."

"The Crown Prince of Adarlan stared him down. "And consider where your true loyalties lie."Once, Chaol might have argued. Once, he might have protested that his loyalty to the crown was his greatest asset. But that blind loyalty and obedience had started this descent.And it had destroyed everything."

"I'm thinking it would be very easy to love you. And easier to call you my friend."

"And he looked lonely enough that she said, 'If you like, you could be my friend'."

"I see all of you, Rhys. And there is not one part that I do not love with everything I am."

"Holy gods. He'd frozen the whole damn lake. He was THAT powerful?"

"The girl wore her scars the way some women wore their finest jewelry."

"She has the most delicious thoughts about you, Tamlin, he said. "She's wondered about the feeling of your fingers on her thighs-between them, too. He chuckled. Even as he said my most private thoughts, even as I burned with outrage and shame, I trembled at the grip still on my mind. Rhysand turned to the High Lord. "I'm curious: Why did she wonder if it would feel good to have you bite her breast the way you bit her neck? "Let. Her. Go. Tamlin's face was twisted with such feral rage that it struck a different, deeper chord of terror in me. "If it's any consolation, Rhysand confided to him, "she would have been the one for you-and you might have gotten away with it. A bit late, though. She's more stubborn than you are."

"We each survive in our own way."

"I think Nesta feels everything- sees too much; sees and feels it all. And she burns with it. Keeping that wall up helps from being overwhelmed, from caring too greatly."

"Maybe I'd always been broken and dark inside. Maybe someone who've been born whole and good would have put down the ash dagger and embraced death rather than what lay before me."

"There are different kinds of darkness, Rhys said. I kept my eyes shut. "There is the darkness that frightens, the darkness that soothes, the darkness that is restful. I pictured each. "There is the darkness of lovers, and the darkness of assassins. It becomes what the bearer wishes it to be, needs it to be. It is not wholly bad or good."

"He looked at his friend, perhaps for the last time, and said what he had always known, from the moment they'd met, when he'd understood that the prince was his brother in soul. "I love you."

"I love you," I said, and stabbed him."

"Her hand rose to her lips and she stared up at the stars, feeling her heart grow, and grow, and grow."

"The Court of Dreams. The people who knew that there was a price, and one worth paying, for that dream."

"Her cheek against the moss, the young princess she had been - Aelin Galathynius - reached a hand for her. 'Get up', she said softly."

"Perhaps there was an unstoppable magic inherent in music and art."

"Chaol," he said, looking over his shoulder. Dorian's eyes were frozen, his jaw clenched. "Treat her well."

"Where is Aelin. Where is my wife?"

"She shook off his grip. "I am what I am, and I don't particularly care what you think of me. "Well, I care what you think of me. I care enough that I stayed at this disgusting party for you. And I care enough that I'd attend a thousand more like it so I can spend a few hours with you when you aren't looking at me like I'M not worth the dirt beneath your shoes."

"He felt as if there were something missing inside him that didn't fit in with their merriment, with their willing ignorance of the world outside the castle. It went beyond his title. He had enjoyed their company early in his adolescence, but it had become apparent that he'd always be a step away. The worst of it was that they didn't seem to notice he was different- or that he felt different. Were it not for Chaol, he would have felt immensely lonely."

"With each day he felt the barriers melting. He let them melt. Because of her genuine laugh, because he caught her one afternoon sleeping with her face in the middle of a book, because he knew she would win."

"To save the queen who held his heart in her scarred hands."

"But they held tighter to each other, past and present and future; flickering between an ancient hall in a mountain castle perched above Orynth, a bridge suspended between glass towers, and another place, perfect and strange, where they had been crafted from stardust and light. A wall of night knocked them back. But they could not be contained. The darkness paused for breath. They erupted."

"So the world ended.And the next one began.They were infinite.They were the beginning and the ending, they were eternity."

"Aedion touched her shoulder. "Welcome home, Aelin."A land of towering mountains-the Stagehorns-spread before them, with valleys and rivers and hills; a land of untamed, wild beauty.Terrasen.And the smell-of pine and snow.. How had she never realized that Rowan's scent was of Terrasen, of home? Rowan came close enough to graze her shoulder and murmured, "I feel as if I've been looking for this place my entire life."

"You want to know what price I asked for forgiving Arobynn, Celaena?" Sam stood so still the he might have been a statue. "My price was his oath that he'd never lay a hand on you again. I told him I'd forgive him in exchange for that."

"Oh, thank the gods. Now I can talk to someone about clothes without being asked how so-and-so would approve of it, or gobble down a box of chocolates without someone telling me I'd better watch my figure-tell me you like chocolates. You do, right? I remember stealing a box from your room once when you were out killing someone. They were delicious. Aelin waved a hand toward the boxes of goodies on the table. "You brought chocolate-as far as I'm concerned, you're my new favorite person."

"Some things you hear with your ears. Others, you hear with your heart."