How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
"For all I know your father thinks it's more than hard on you, being cut out by Anja, but they've known the reason. Supposing it was for something they'd grown up not believing in, couldn't bring themselves to believe in […]. Do you see now why it's better like it is, in spite of what it's doing to you? And did to Grayne? I tell you, girl, it's a knife in my heart every time I see her, thinking of it." (3.219)
Tilja feels alienated from the rest of her family, but Meena explains why it might be better long-term this way—though it isn't exactly helping Til feel better here.
Quote #2
Magic, she thought. Yes, Talagh, the warded city. Wards of immense power, built into its walls by the greatest magicians in the Empire. And she, Tilja, had just carried Axtrig through them. The Ropemaker had said he didn't know if she could do it, but she had. The wards had tried to stop her, to break through her own mysterious defenses, and they had failed. Though she was still shuddering with the remembered strain and terror, beneath them she began to feel a strange sort of dazed exhilaration at the understanding of what she had done. (8.16)
Tilja is starting to realize that she might have magic of her own. She may not have the traditional powers of the Urlasdaughter family, but her power is still something special, different and unique in its own right. Tilja's beginning to discover that there's more to her than just the little girl from the Valley—she's got the power to defy some super powerful magic.
Quote #3
What had happened in the enclosure had been extremely frightening and dangerous, and she wasn't at all sure Silena mightn't have broken through her defenses if the donkey hadn't brayed at exactly the right time. Would she be able to do it again if the need rose? Do what? She didn't even know that. (9.79)
After beating Silena, Tilja isn't sure how she did it. Her newly-discovered power seems to work in ways she can't comprehend, and she wonders if she can put on a repeat performance if it's necessary. Magic is beginning to alter life as she knows it.
Quote #4
"While you've been wondering about things, has it ever crossed your mind to wonder where all the magic is coming from? It comes out of us, that's where. We've all got a bit of it, right? All of our lives it kind of settles into us, like dust, and then it comes out again when we die. Some of us find how to take it and use it, and they're the ones who become magicians, but most of us don't even notice it's there." (9.78)
We get hints early on that magic can be seen blowing around like dust clouds in the Empire, but there's not supposed to be any in Goloroth. Right? Wrong… kind of. It turns out those magical eddies swirl out of people when they die and settle into other people, who then accumulate power and become big-time magicians.
Quote #5
"Astonishing." he said. I sense nothing at all of its presence. "I do not know how you do this—it is something I have never before encountered. Give it back to me now. Thank you." (11.148)
Tilja touches Faheel's magic ring and just feels a big humming sound, but nothing else. Faheel's gobsmacked—he's never seen anything of the sort. Tilja's powers are so unusual that not even the greatest magician in recent history has heard of them. She's one unique heroine, that's for sure.
Quote #6
"There are different kinds of magic. Almost all human magic is made magic, made like a clay pot or a wooden chair. The wood and clay are not chair and pot until the carpenter and potter make them so. The air is full of wild magic, gusting around, so that a magician can gather it into himself or herself and give it shape and purpose. That is made magic. Your power appears to be to unmake that making. It is as if you could put your hand on a chair and return it to the tree from which was shaped. If you put your hand on a tree it would not change. It is itself already." (13.35)
Faheel explains to Tilja just what kind of magic she's been dealing with. She can unmake made magic, but her powers don't extend to natural magics. Finally, Til gets a diagnostic—someone tells her exactly what she can do. Faheel has become her teacher, not just a distant magician she is searching for; these two have pretty officially bonded with each other.
Quote #7
He shook his head again, remembering the struggle. No wonder he was so exhausted last night, Tilja thought. Both of us. Only just made it. But given those two or three changed minutes, Alnor and Meena were alive instead of dead, and could go back to the Valley and remake the old magic, and all time to come would be different, utterly different. (18.58)
The Ropemaker—and Faheel—envision time as a great rope, so plucking at a strand changes events to come and takes great effort. But Tilja notes that all of the hard work she and Ropey put in was worth it. Perhaps it's a metaphor for her magical discovery—she put in a lot of hard work and went through hardships, but in the end her home and friends are saved.
Quote #8
"Yes, I see," said Alnor solemnly. "Asarta's magic isn't really in the bread and water, not any longer. They're just tools we use, so to speak. But the true magic is in ourselves, in our blood, renewing and renewing itself through the generations. Twenty generations after Asarta, and twenty more after Faheel, and now another twenty to come." (18.68)
For twenty generations the Urlasdaughters and Ortahlsons have performed the rituals Asarta set forth—but now Alnor realizes that the magic lies not in the products of those rites but instead in the practitioners themselves. The people perpetuate the magic—after all, magicians are people too—and have done so, and will continue to do so, for many years. While the Valley folks definitely needed help to renew the magic, they have the power to keep it going.
Quote #9
Tilja understood that she was watching something wholly magical, not the man-made magic of Talagh, or of the ring, but the kind of magic by which Faheel had made friends with mountains and with oceans. She was filled with delighted amazement that she, Tilja, whose touch could undo powerfully woven charms and destroy great magicians, was allowed to watch this happen. (19.60)
Tilja has come full-circle from the beginning of the story, when she felt excluded from her family's bond with the unicorns and cedars. Now, having matured and discovered her own unique power, she doesn't feel resentful, but instead grateful to be able to witness this type of magic.
Quote #10
"You know what I'm thinking," said Ma in a low voice. "Now that we've all seen a bit of real magic, we understand that we're better off without it, here in the Valley. It belongs in the forest and the mountains. It has no place here, among us." (20.27)
When Tahl is possessed by Dorn's magic, Tilja is forced to rid him of it. Magic is dangerous, thinks Ma, and should only be used when talking to the cedars/unicorns or the river. This statement contrasts her everyday Valley life—which contains no magic—with the life Tilja knows she must lead, in which she uses her powers.