How we cite our quotes: (Story.Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
The goblins didn't look away. Their mouths filled with saliva as they watched her. There was scant cover for them in the leafless hawthorns along the main road, and Kizzy should have seen them. (1.1.35)
Who says that the small town where Kizzy lives and goes to school is boring? They have all sorts of interesting inhabitants, including some creepy goblins that are really into stealing girls' souls.
Quote #2
They'd have said there was no "believing" involved. They knew, because Kizzy's grandmother had saved her sister from them one in the Old Country and lived to tell. She'd never tired of telling the story, how the goblins had tried to force her mouth open and cram in their unnatural fruit, how she'd kept her jaw clamped tight against them. (1.1.37)
Kizzy's family doesn't just tell folk tales and myths about magical beings for fun. She grows up with true stories about the magical creatures her family has encountered—especially the dangerous goblins that tried to steal Mairenni away.
Quote #3
But Kizzy felt a swelling of ghosts around her this time, a tide; her grandmother might have been there, but she wasn't alone. Kizzy froze in mid-step, chilled and startled, and looked up at Jack Husk. For a second some look passed through his sly eyes, some intelligence… a hint of a sneer? (1.3.30)
Even though Kizzy is completely focused on the cute boy that's taking her out on a breakfast picnic, she can't help but listen to what the ghosts are saying about goblins and being careful. After all, it's not every day that ghosts start whispering warnings in your ear.
Quote #4
Estella stared at them. Delight gleamed in their eyes. They didn't believe her. Of course they didn't. Her Majesty's subjects didn't go around believing things willy-nilly. But whether they believed it or not, the curse was as real as the heat, and soon they would know it. (2.2.15)
To the fancy British people at the garden party, Estella's curse is just some kind of silly game. They don't have the slightest idea that she has an actual demon holding her to the curse, and that they will all die if baby Anamique so much as whimpers.
Quote #5
In the Fire, Anamique's eyes were open and she saw countless souls drifting all around her, souls like alchemist's metal being transfigured in this great crucible, souls made molten, made new. (2.11.54)
Anamique's having the kind of bad day where all sorts of unbelievable things keep happening to her. First she starts singing at her birthday party and all her friends and loved ones drop dead, and now she has to travel through Hell and see a bunch of dead souls. What a trip.
Quote #6
The music flowed into him like a river and swept all his malice away, and when he awakened from his trance, he would hear himself mutter preposterous things like, "Whatever you think is best," or, "Of course my dear, all the children shall survive the flood." (2.12.4)
When Vasudev cursed Anamique with that otherworldly beautiful (but deadly) voice, he didn't think of how the consequences would affect him if she became the next Ambassador to Hell. Now the old demon is falling under her spell… and he has no one to blame but himself. Ha.
Quote #7
The forests belong to the Druj. Everything in them belongs to the Druj and the Druj are supposed to stay there—agreements had been made—but sometimes boredom gets the better of them.
Boredom is a terrible affliction for the soulless. (3.3.4-5)
Being immortal probably seems super cool at first, but after a while it loses its shine. That's what happens to the Druj. They tend to get bored after a lifetime (or rather endless lifetimes) of doing the same thing.
Quote #8
Seeing her desperate white face, Mihai quickly whispered a word in his harsh language. A glimmering window peeled open in the air and he said, "Come," drawing Esmé against him with one arm and holding out his other hand to Mab. (3.4.62)
When things start to look bad for Mab and Esmé, Mihai rushes in to save the day with his cool Druj magic. Even Mab can't disapprove when it means that she and her daughter will survive.
Quote #9
In Mihai's grasp, she was floating. Stunned, she looked up at him.
He was whispering fiercely and without pause. His Druj eyes looked almost white in the gloom as he stared straight ahead, whispering his magic. He and Esmé drifted through the air and Esmé's heart thudded in her chest, her mouth hanging slack in amazement. (3.9.21-22)
If Esmé could imagine this tune playing in the background maybe her trip to Tajbel would be less terrifying and more thrillingly magical. Just sayin'.
Quote #10
She chose immortality and the others followed her. And so the god scorched their souls to ash and scattered them in the wind. He dubbed them Druj. Demons. He breathed a mist into their memories and he plucked their children from their arms to grow old and die as humans, and he flung the Druj to the mountains where they could begin their immortality in landscapes of desolation that reflected the emptiness within them. (3.16.4)
Having immortality and magical powers seems like it's totally worth any price, but it turns out that the Druj end up with the short end of the stick. It's hard to find anything fun or novel when you're just going to live forever…