How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
The sense of immense, strange power controlled and leashed by her hands and then laid to sleep once more against her arm was something like the feeling she had after a good day on the farm, work that had gone well, in fine clear weather, with larks invisibly high above the fields, pouring out their song. (9.33)
Tilja is beginning to relish her role as a fully productive member of their group—no longer is she the magic-less one. Once they're in the Empire, which is full of magic, she can contribute to their journey and becomes in charge of her own powers—and helps her team big time on their quest to find Faheel.
Quote #2
But that didn't alter the fact that she'd done it, alone and without help, and done it by discovering something totally new about herself. That discovery filled with a sort of peaceful exhilaration. (9.80)
When Tilja beats Silena, she's worried that she won't be able to do it again—but at the same time, she's also thrilled that she's tapped into a previously unknown part of herself. The magic is hers, and no one helped her find it. In other words, there's a new Tilja in town.
Quote #3
Again she felt the force of the wards that guarded teh city, but it was very different from when she had first come through. There was no numbness, but an intense, strange feeling, as if the hand that enclosed the ring box had been a wine glass round whose rim somebody was rubbing a moistened fingertip, setting up a note that in a moment would shatter the glass.
No, she told it, and raised her fist in defiance. The finger withdrew and the note stilled. (12.8-9)
When Tilja enters Talagh, she feels the power of the city's wards pressing in on her, trying to break her control. Rather than letting these intimidating powers get to her, she resists, defying Talagh's will. She tells them no, and the girl means it—and it works. The first time she came through Talagh, Tilja wouldn't have had the confidence and power to do this, but she's matured into her powers by now.
Quote #4
The wonder and excitement of the last few hours had driven Tilja's worries about the Ropemaker from her mind. Now, at this last instant, they came rushing back.
"The Ro-Ropemaker?" she stammered. "But… I… I meant to ask you… if… if he was the unicorn, then he almost killed Ma!?
Faheel nodded.
"We all make mistakes," he said sadly. "The more powerful we are, the worse they will be. I have no time now to explain. I must ask you to trust me when I tell you that this was a mistake in innocence. But once your Ropemaker accepts the powers of a Watcher he will be lost beyond recovery. Some of those who stand there now were once honorable magicians. Dorn had been my own pupil."
He waited. Tilja realized he was allowing her, even now, to decide to refuse to help him. That itself decided her. She nodded and turned to the screen. (12.41-45)
Once Tilja realizes that the Ropemaker was the unicorn who almost killed her mother, she's reluctant to help Faheel find him. After all, can she—or anyone—trust a near-murderer? Notably, Faheel lets Tilja decide if she wants to help him. He treats her as an equal in this situation—it's her decision whether or not to proceed with this journey. Once she recognizes his respect and trust in her, she agrees to help Faheel find the Ropemaker.
Quote #5
Tilja stared. It was difficult for her to take in. What had Lananeth said? We live and die at his will. No longer. He was dead himself, not at his own will, but at Faheel's. And Tilja's too, perhaps. Faheel couldn't have done it without her, and if she'd understood what she was doing she'd still have chosen to do it. For the of the the Valley. (12.77)
Tilja realizes she played a role in the Emperor's death. This shocks her—she's changed the political landscape of the world. Perhaps this means she's helped eliminated the threat to the Valley. More importantly though, she has taken a life. Tilja takes responsibility for this and rationalizes it as removing the man who threatens her entire livelihood. Whether you agree with her or not, this is an action of a true adult.
Quote #6
She could, if she had chosen, have gone upstairs again and stolen every fabulous jewel that those women were wearing, and no one would ever have known how it was done. The idea was thrilling. And dangerous--a danger that came not from outside herself, but from within. A Tilja who gave in to it would have become a different Tilja from the one who had flown to Talagh on the back of the roc. Now she could understand why it had mattered so much that the Ropemaker didn't become one of the Watchers. (12.105)
After contemplating the possibilities of ultimate power several times—and barely rejecting taking advantage of it—Tilja has realized the implications such actions would have. They would fundamentally alter her as a person, corrupt her from the inside out, and she wouldn't be whom she wants to be. This moral resistance of temptation shows Tilja's moral development.
Quote #7
[...] in her mind's eye she saw a great brass balance, like the cunning wooden scales Ma used to measure ingredients when she was baking. There was a bowl at either end of a bar. The bar tilted at the center, one way or another, depending on which bowl held more weight. But the bowls Tilja saw in her mind weren't polished wood, like Ma's. Each of them was half of the world. A small figure stood beside each bowl, waiting for the bar to tilt his way. One of them Tilja couldn't see clearly. He was darkness in the shape of a man. The unknown magician, the enemy. His bowl was full of the same darkness. The other one was the Ropemaker, unmistakable, that gawky figure. topped by the monstrous headdress. There was nothing to tell her what was in the Ropemaker's bowl, but whatever it was it had to be better than darkness.
At the center of the bar was a small golden ant. [...] As she watched, the ant started to crawl along the beam toward the Ropemaker's end, and she realized that when it reached the bowl its tiny weight would be just enough to tilt the balance that way [....]
The ant, she realized, was herself, Tilja. (13.56-58)
Tilja envisions the power struggle between her unknown enemy and the Ropemaker as a scale balancing evil versus good. She realizes she is the deciding factor in the fate of the world that will result from these magicians' battle. Tilja hardly hesitates at the great responsibility that she must take up—she's grown to realize her place in the world and takes on her duties without question.
Quote #8
But everything else was changed, all Tilja's hopes and fears and expectations, all her life to come. Yes, she was going home with the others, if she could. She was going back to Woodbourne. But she wasn't staying there. There was no magic in the Valley. Her gift was no use there. (14.16)
Tilja started out the journey thinking that she would help the Valley and stay there, returning to her previous self once she came home. But her trials and tribulations—along with her discovery of her magical talent—turn Tilja into a whole new person. She fully realizes how she's changed, and as a result the projections for her future are entirely different from the ones she once had.
Quote #9
She felt completely confident about this. She had held Faheel's ring in her hand and blanked out its magic. She didn't believe that all the Watchers together could match that power. Along with that confidence came a feeling—more than a feeling, almost a certainty—that what she had seen and done in the last few days had given her strengths that she had not had on the journey south. As much as Meena and Alnor, though in very different ways, she had changed. (14.75)
Tilja compares her maturation to Meena and Alnor's age reversal. Their drastic shift from being old to young is comparable to the degree of her own change. Just as the old Meena and Alnor wouldn't be recognizable, neither would the new Tilja be recognizable to her loved ones. She's far more self-assured and completely confident in her powers.
Quote #10
They sat for a while in silence, Tilja vaguely but deeply content at the completion of things with this homecoming, Anja turning the feathers over, studying them, stroking them gently with her fingertips. When they rose and left the stables, day had broken. (20.135)
Tilja and Anja each reconfirm their responsibilities in the barn—Tilja as magician and guide, Anja as the recipient of Urlasdaughter magic and transmitter of knowledge about the Ropemaker. When both emerge from the forest, it is a new day, both literally and metaphorically. They have settled into their new roles, but don't have to occupy them quite yet—as we see with Anja, there's still room to be kids.