How we cite our quotes: (Story.Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
Kizzy decided this had to be some beautiful boys' evil club initiation: to tease a freak girl and kill her heart. It was the only explanation. (1.2.44)
Talking to Jack Husk is thrilling, but Kizzy can't help but worry that it's all some kind of mean joke. Maybe he's just talking to her in order to make fun of her later with the popular kids…
Quote #2
Most days I believe in the curse with all my heart. I believe that I might kill with no more effort than it takes others to sing or pray. Those days are easy. My voice sleeps and I have no terrible impulses to speak. But some days I wake with doubts and worse, spite, and every moment speech trembles on my lips so that I have to bite them. (2.5.2)
There's a reason that Anamique has never uttered a single sound in her whole life: She's afraid the curse is real and that she'll be responsible for taking a life. In this way, her life is governed by fear.
Quote #3
It was his shadow, and it was crisp beneath the lamps of the Agent's gates now, as if it had never been gone. Inside the little parcel, on the brown paper, was scrawled one word. Believe.
James' soul trembled, just a little. (2.8.33-34)
James may not believe in supernatural beings or curses, but the loss and subsequent return of his shadow definitely puts him on edge. Maybe Estella and her servant aren't crazy and he shouldn't be so insistent about asking Anamique to speak aloud.
Quote #4
She knew why. She looked up at him and spots of color flamed in her cheeks. He was afraid of her. After all of his cajoling and his scoffing at Providence, making her believe she could have a normal life, making her dream and hope, after all that, he was afraid of the curse! (2.9.20)
This is so not how Anamique imagined her first kiss going. Instead of kissing her because he wants to, James ends up kissing her in order to shut her up. He's scared that if she makes a noise, he'll die—and so will all of the people around them. It turns out that he's right to be afraid.
Quote #5
"You will serve in her place as Ambassador to Hell."
Anamique felt a spasm of fear, but she nodded. "Anything," she repeated. (2.11.61-62)
Anamique isn't just a pretty young girl with an otherworldly voice; she's a fearless crusader for those that she loves, too. After all, she's willing to go into the Fire of Hell in order to retrieve James's soul—and she even agrees to become the next Ambassador to Hell.
Quote #6
She hated to wake her mother if she wasn't having one of her nightmares—Mab was plagued by nightmares and found little rest in sleep. So many nights, so many mornings, she woke screaming and Esmé soothed her as if she were the mother and Mab the child. (3.1.1)
Poor Mab is still plagued by memories of her time in Tajbel. Even though she won't tell Esmé about everything that happened, it's clear that she's still pretty traumatized from her time serving as the Druj Queen's little pet.
Quote #7
Esmé nodded, sobbing raggedly, and for a few moments they stared at each other like strangers. Then Mab wrapped her arms around her daughter and held her close, rocking her and whispering, "I'm so sorry, my darling. I'm so sorry I frightened you," and they both wept until their breathing calmed. (3.1.20)
Mab's reaction to Esmé's blue eye is scarier than the color transformation itself: She basically attacks Esmé as though she's a stranger. The whole episode makes Esmé feel as though her color-changing eye is much worse news than she initially thought.
Quote #8
Frantically, Mab followed her pointing finger, and at the same instant that she heard the first bewildered screams coming from the docks, she saw them. Black, rushing, huge. With a cry, she clawed Esmé's hand off the rail and dragged her through the doorway. (3.4.53)
Mab's terrified reaction is totally justified here. When you have vicious immortal demons in wolf form chasing you, the only reasonable thing to feel is abject terror.
Quote #9
She would never forget those eyes, or the rank smell the wind teased up from under the bridges, and she would never forget the silhouettes of the beasts' long, white arms reaching up to grope for any life thing they might pull down into their gaping mouths—cats, a fawn… her. (3.6.20)
It seems like everything about Tajbel is scary. The Druj are unpredictable, bored, and capable of great cruelty, and the beasts underneath the bridge will happily tear any living thing to shreds. Sounds like a fun place to live… not.
Quote #10
As she drew them, Mab saw the handmaidens' eyes over the top of the Queen's bent head. Her heartbeat quickened. Their eyes, they were like the eyes of cats watching the futile scuttling of injured prey as they toyed with it, minute by minute, prolonging for pleasure the inevitable fatal strike. (3.8.14)
Uh-oh. Even if Mab doesn't know exactly what the Druj Queen and her minions are up to, she knows enough to be frightened. The Druj can come up with some pretty twisted games when they're bored.