How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
"I don't—" Clara began, but the watch had vanished again. He snapped his empty fingers, and it gleamed in the palm of his other hand. He lost the watch a third time and discovered it behind Clara's sash; he produced it from under her chin; he bent almost double and brought it out from the hem of her skirt. He circled her, his hands fluttering, the watch winking in and out of thin air. (5.16)
To Clara, Grisini is just a clever puppeteer who can perform some magic tricks and sleight of hand. What she doesn't know is that he's a real magician, and he can do other things besides making his watch disappear and reappear. Like, say, make her disappear, too.
Quote #2
How could she have dreamed of crushing the stone? She had come close to losing it; she had wielded the silver mirror with force enough to shatter the metacarpal bones in her hand. If her arm had not changed direction, she would have lost everything: color and power and healing. (7.6)
All this time, Cassandra has thought of the phoenix-stone as the thing that gives her power. She thinks that she's the stone's master, but it's becoming clear that the stone is her master. It's more powerful than she is and can destroy her if it wants.
Quote #3
The mirrors around her were alive. Each mirror held a wraith of a woman, burning. The sheets of glass reflected the image over and over again, like colored beads in a kaleidoscope. Cassandra lifted her hands to cover her eyes. The women lifted their arms with her. Each pair of blazing hands moved in rhythm with her hands. (13.13)
Now that Cassandra is growing old and weak, the phoenix-stone haunts her nearly all the time—both when she's awake and asleep. She can't escape her fate … and the fate of all of the other women who have burned to death before her.
Quote #4
"She is real," Parsefall said in a thread of a voice. "Grisini must've—"
Lizzie Rose's fingers tightened. "He couldn't have, Parse. People can't do things like that. Magic spells—and evil magicians—" There was a brief, pregnant pause. "They're only in plays." (18.12-13)
When they find the puppet, Parsefall is convinced that Grisini has turned Clara into a puppet, but Lizzie Rose isn't so sure. After all, that's a crazy notion, right? People can't just turn children into puppets … right?
Quote #5
"The other women who burned. The opal is known as the phoenix-stone because the fires recur. Almost everyone who possessed it died by fire. One woman was struck by lightning. Another perished in a house fire; that was said to be an accident. But there were other women who set themselves ablaze. Madwomen, suicides. One woman left a letter behind. She said that the women she saw in her looking glass had driven her insane." (19.37)
The phoenix-stone is insanely powerful, but it's also more dangerous than Cassandra ever guessed. The stone's magic leads all of its owners to die in fires and even drives some of them insane. Yikes.
Quote #6
The captive child would be easy prey. Above all things, Clara Wintermute would desire the magic power that would break Grisini's spell. Nothing would be simpler than to tempt her with the fire opal. It only remained for Cassandra to devise some way of speaking to Clara in her paralyzed state. It could be done; with the power of the cursed stone, it could be managed. Cassandra thought of the intricate, draining spell she would have to cast and wanted to groan with weariness. (29.31)
Being a witch isn't all fun and games, especially for Cassandra. She doesn't use her magic to do fun or silly things—or even to impress people at parties. She has to do these long, complicated spells just so she can get one of the kids to steal the stone so she won't have to burn to death.
Quote #7
"Ah, the automaton watch!" Cassandra lifted her hands; one was bandaged like a mummy's paw. "So that's how he cast his spell on you! Years ago, I gave him that watch. He was my pupil in sorcery, Gaspare was; he pretended to love me, and I—" She shrugged. "You know how it is. Someone pretends to love you, and you give away too much." (31.21)
All of Grisini's magical power is housed in his automaton watch, which is something he received as a present from his former lover, Cassandra. She must have truly loved him if she was willing to share her magic with him—too bad he was so undeserving of it.
Quote #8
"You see how beautiful it is? And beauty is only the beginning. There's power in it—power to gain, power to heal, power to break down the barriers between minds. That's how I can speak to you. I brought you inside it, so that I could see into your heart." (31.53)
With the phoenix-stone, Cassandra can do all sorts of cool things, like heal wounds and read minds. But it's all pretty useless if she's living a lonely, isolated life, isn't it? Magic won't save her from unhappiness.
Quote #9
She was no witch, and she had no idea how to work her spell. But she had devised a ritual, and over and over she practiced it.
She began by recalling the night Cassandra's magic had brought her to life. She pictured herself swelling until she was full-size; she envisioned herself crossing the carpet and going out into the passage. (33.2-3)
Clara has never done magic before, but apparently it has something to do with wanting it badly enough. She wants to warn Parsefall and Lizzie Rose about Cassandra's scheme, so she starts to work hard to enter their dreams.
Quote #10
"It's the maze. On the Tower Room floor—the red lines that woz painted there! We been making the lines wiv our tracks—over and over—"
"It's a spell," Lizzie Rose said despairingly. "We can't leave. She cast a spell on us so we can't leave." (43.32-33)
When the kids try to leave Strachan's Ghyll in the middle of the night, they're dismayed to find that Cassandra's magic is too strong for them and they can't leave. That old witch still has some tricks up her sleeve.