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How the King of Elfhame Learned to Hate Stories

Book by Holly Black · 19 quotes · Cardan Greenbriar, Holly Black, The Folk Of The Air

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How the King of Elfhame Learned to Hate Stories Quotes

“,,,I decided to play the hero. See how it felt. To try.' 'And?' she asks. 'I didn't like it,' he admits. 'Henceforth, I think we should consider our roles as monarchs to be largely decorative. It would be better for the low Courts and the solitary Folk to work things out on their own.' 'I think you have iron poisoning,' she tells him, which could possibly be true but is still a hurtful thing to say when he is making perfect sense.”

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“,,,you think it was sunrise I was waiting for and not my queen. Do you not hear her footfalls? She has never quite managed the trick of hiding them as well as one of the Folk. Surely you've heard of her, Jude Duarte, who defeated the redcap Grima Mog, who brought the Court of Teeth to their knees? She's forever getting me out of scrapes. Truly, I don't know what I would do without her.”

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“The off curve of her ear was what he had noticed first. A roundness echoed in her cheeks and her mouth. Then it was the way her body looked solid, as though meant to take up space and weight in the world. When she moved, she left behind footprints in the forest floor. Because she didn't know how to glide silently, to disturb no leaf of branch. He felt smug to see how bad she was at even such an easy thing. It was only later that it disturbed him to think back on the shape of her boot in the soil, as though she was the only real thing in a land of ghosts. He had seen her before, he supposed. But at the palace school, he really looked. He noted her skirts, spattered with mud, and her hair ribbons, partially undone. He saw her twin sister, her double, as though one of them were a changeling child and not human at all. He saw the way they whispered together while they ate, smiling over private jokes. He saw the way they answered the instructors, as though they had any right to this knowledge, had any right to be sitting among their betters. To occasionally better their betters with those answers. And the one girl was good with a sword, instructed personally by the Grand General, as though she was not some by-blow of a faithless wife.”

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“Vivi and Heather take them out for bubble tea. There are no actual bubbles. Instead, he is served toothsome balls soaked in a sweet, milky tea. Vivi orders grass jelly, and Heather gets a lavender drink that is the colour of the flowers and just as fragrant. Cardan is fascinated and insists on having a sip of each. Then he eats a bite of the half-dozen types of dumplings they order- mushroom, cabbage and pork, cilantro and beef, hot-oil chicken dumplings that numb his tongue, then creamy custard to cool it, along with sweet red bean that sticks to his teeth. Heather glares at Cardan as though he bit the head off a sprite in the middle of a banquet. 'You can't eat some of a dumpling and put it back,' Oak insists. 'That's revolting.' Cardan considers villainy takes many forms, and he is good at all of them. Jude stabs the remainder of the bean bun with a single chopstick, popping it into her mouth and chewing with obvious satisfaction. 'Gooh,' she gets out when she notices the others looking at her. Vivi laughs and orders more dumplings.”

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“Jude ought to be cowed. She was supposed to bow and scrape, to submit and acknowledge his superiority. A little grovelling wouldn't have gone amiss. He would have very much liked it if she begged. 'Give up,' Cardan said, fully expecting that she would. 'Never,' Jude wore an unnerving little smile in the corners of her mouth, as though even she couldn't believe what she was saying. The most infuriating part was that she didn't have to mean it. She was mortal. She could lie. So why wouldn't she? In this, there was no winning for her. And yet, after he told her all the soft, menacing things he could think of, after he left her clambering back up onto the riverbank, he realised he was the one who had retreated. He was the one who backed down. And all through that night and for many nights after, he couldn't rid his thoughts of her. Not the hatred in her eyes. That he understood. That he didn't mind. It warmed him. But the contempt made her feel as though she saw beneath all his sharp and polished edges. It reminded him of how his father and all the Court had seen him, before he learned how to shield himself with villainy. And doomed as she was, he envied her whatever conviction made her stand there and defy him. She ought to be nothing. She ought to be insignificant. She ought not to matter. He had to make her not matter. But every night, Jude haunted him. The coils of her hair. The calluses on her fingers. An absent bite of her lip. It was too much, the way he thought about her. He knew it was too much, but he couldn't stop. It disgusted him that he couldn't stop. He had to make her see that he was her better. To beg his pardon. And grovel. He had to find a way to make her admire him. To kneel before him and plead for his royal mercy. To surrender. To yield.”

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“Cardan lies on the rug with one arm propping up his head and the other slung across Jude's waist. He understands everything and nothing he sees on the screen- just as he understands everything and nothing about being here with her family. He feels like a feral cat that might bite out of habit.”

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“Oak gave up his room so they could sleep there, and although the bed is small, Cardan cannot mind when he takes Jude in his arms. 'You're probably missing your fancy palace right about now,' she whispers to him in the dark. He traces the edge of her lip, runs his finger over the soft human hair of her cheek, pausing on a freckle and comes to rest on a tiny scar, a line of pale skin drawn there by some blade. He considers explaining how much he despised the palace as a child, how he dreamed of escaping Elfhame. She knows most of that already. Then he considers reminding her that the fancy palace is now as much hers as his. 'Not in the least,' he says instead, and feels her smile against his skin. But once he starts recalling his desire to leave Elfhame, he can't help but also recall how desperately she wanted to stay. And how difficult that had been, how hard she had fought, how hard she was still fighting, even now that she didn't have to. 'Why didn't you hate everyone?' he asks. 'Everyone, all the time.' 'I hated you,' Jude reassures him, bringing her mouth to his.”

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“He thought of one of those girls frowning over a book, pushing a lock of brown hair back over one oddly curved ear. He thought of the way she looked at him, brows narrowed in suspicion. Scornful and alert. Awake. Alive. He imagined her as a mindless servant and felt a rush of something he couldn't quite untangle- horror, and also a sort of terrible relief. No ensorcelled human could look at him as she did.”

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“The odd curve of her ear was what he had noticed first. A roundness echoed in her cheeks and her mouth. Then it was the way her body looked solid, as though meant to take up space and weight in the world. When she moved, she left behind footprints in the forest floor. Because she didn't know how to glide silently, to disturb no leaf of branch. He felt smug to see how bad she was at even such an easy thing. It was only later that it disturbed him to think back on the shape of her boot in the soil, as though she was the only real thing in a land of ghosts. He had seen her before, he supposed. But at the palace school, he really looked. He noted her skirts, spattered with mud, and her hair ribbons, partially undone. He saw her twin sister, her double, as though one of them were a changeling child and not human at all. He saw the way they whispered together while they ate, smiling over private jokes. He saw the way they answered the instructors, as though they had any right to this knowledge, had any right to be sitting among their betters. To occasionally better their betters with those answers. And the one girl was good with a sword, instructed personally by the Grand General, as though she was not some by-blow of a faithless wife.”

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“The seeds of Prince Cardan's resentment came full bloom. What was the point of her trying so hard? Why would she work like that when it would never win her anything? ... He had never tried like that for anything in his life. Jude, Cardan though, hating even the shape of her name. Jude.”

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“One of her hands was at her hip, touching her belt, as though she might draw the weapon sheathed there. The idea was hilarious, He certainly hadn't buckled on a sword in preparation for coming here. He wasn't even sure he could stay standing long enough to swing, and he had only beaten her when he was sober because she let him. Jude looked up at him, and in her eyes, he recognised a hate big enough and wide enough and deep enough to match his own. A hate you could drown in like a vat of wine. Too late to hide it, she lowered her head in the pretense of defence. Impossible, Cardan thought. What had she to be angry about, she who had been given everything he was denied? Perhaps he had imagined it. Perhaps he wanted to see his reflection on someone else's face and had perversely chosen hers. With a whoop, he rode in her direction, just to watch her and her sister run. Just to show her that if she did hate him, her hatred was as impotent as his own.”

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“He cuts his gaze toward his unpredictable mortal High Queen, whose wild brown hair is blowing around her face, whose amber eyes are alight when she looks at him. They are two people who ought to have, by all rights, remained enemies forever. He can't believe his good fortune, can't trace the path that got him here.”

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“This?' he demands, looking down at the waves far beneath them. 'This is how you travelled? What if the enchantment ended while Vivi wasn't with you?' 'I suppose I would have plummeted out of the air,' Jude tells him with troubling equanimity, her expression saying, Horrible risks are entirely normal to me. Cardan has to admit that the ragwort steeds are swift and that there is something thrilling about tangling his hand in a leafy mane and racing across the sky. It's not as though he doesn't enjoy a little danger, just that he doesn't gorge himself on it, unlike some people.”

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“One of his primary duties as the High King appears to be reminding her she isn't personally responsible for solving every tedious problem and carrying out every tedious execution in all of Elfhame. He wouldn't mind causing a little torment here or there, of a non-murdery sort, but her view of their positions seems overburdened with chores.”

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“If you must fight this thing, there's no reason to go alone. You could take a battalion of knights or, failing that, me.' 'You think you're the equal of a battalion of knights?' she asks with a smile. He might be, he supposes, although there's no telling how the mortal world will affect his magic. He did once raise an isle from the bottom of the sea. He wonders if he ought to remind her of that, wonders if she had been impressed. 'I believe that I could easily best all of them combined, in a suitable contest. Perhaps one involving drink.' She kicks her ragwort steed forward with a laugh.”

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