Suffering is like anything else. Live with it long enough, you learn to like the taste.

And that was what destroyed you in the end: the longing for something you could never have.

How many times have you told me you're a monster? So be a monster. Be the thing they all fear when they close their eyes at night.

Crows remember human faces. They remember the people who feed them, who are kind to them. And the people who wrong them too. They don’t forget. They tell each other who to look after and who to watch out for.

Nina glanced from Inej to Kaz and saw they both wore the same expression. Nina knew that look. It came after the shipwreck, when the tide moved against you and the sky had gone dark. It was the first sight of land, the hope of shelter and even salvation that might await you on a distant shore.

She smiled then, her cheeks red, her cheeks scattered with some kind of dust. It was a smile he thought he might die to earn again.