The Wicked King Quotes

“Revenge is sweet, but ice cream is sweeter.”
― Holly Black, The Wicked King

“Come home and shout at me. Come home and
fight with me. Come home and break my
heart, if you must.
Just come home.
Cardan”
― Holly Black, The Queen of Nothing

“Better she never be a bride than wind up a widow”
― Holly Black, The Wicked King

“Tell me again what you said at the revel," he says, climbing over me, his body against mine.

"What?" I can barely think.

"That you hate me," he says, his voice hoarse. "Tell me that you hate me."

"I hate you," I say, the words coming out like a caress. I say it again, over and over. A litany. An enchantment. A ward against what I really feel. "I hate you. I hate you. I hate you."

He kisses me harder.

"I hate you," I breathe into his mouth. "I hate you so much that sometimes I can't think of anything else.”
― Holly Black, The Wicked King

“I hate you," I whisper before he can speak.

He tilts my face to his.

"Say it again," he says as the imps comb my hair and place the ugly, stinking crown on my head. His voice is low. The words are for me alone.

I pull out of his grip, but not before I see his expression. He looks as he did when he was forced to answer my questions, when he admitted his desire for me. He looks as though he's confessing.”
― Holly Black, The Wicked King

“I hate you," I whisper before he can speak.

He tilts my face to his.

"Say it again," he says as the imps comb my hair and place the ugly, stinking crown on my head.”
― Holly Black, The Wicked King

“I hate the way I cling to him, the nails of one hand digging into his back, my thoughts splintering, and the single last thing in my head: that I like him better than I've ever liked anyone and that of all the things he's ever done to me, making me like him so much is by far the worst.”
― Holly Black, The Wicked King

“Jude Duarte, you will leave the High King's side,' Balekin says.

At that tone, Cardan's focus narrows. I can see him straining to concentrate. 'She will not,' he says.”
― Holly Black, The Wicked King

“I exile Jude Duarte to the mortal world. Until and unless she is pardoned by the crown, let her not step one foot in Faerie or forfeit her life.'

'I gasp. 'But you can't do that!'

He looks at me for a long moment, but his gaze is mild, as though he's expecting me to be fine with exile. As though I am nothing more than one of his petitioners. As though I am nothing at all. 'Of course I can,' he replies.
...
Our eyes meet, and the odd smile on his face is clearly meant for me. I remember what it was to hate him with the whole of my heart, but I've remembered too late.”
― Holly Black, The Wicked King

“But how did she make you agree?' I demand. 'She had no power. She could pretend to be me, but she couldn't force you-'

He puts his head in his long-fingered hands. 'She didn't have to command me, Jude. She didn't have to use any magic. I trust you. I trusted you.'

And I trusted Taryn.”
― Holly Black, The Wicked King

“Well, wife,' he says to me, a chill in his voice. 'It seems you have kept at least one secret from your dowry.”
― Holly Black, The Wicked King

“You're going to be okay,' I say.

'You know,' he says, hanging on to me, 'that ought to be reassuring. But when mortals say it, it doesn't mean the same thing as when the Folk do, does it? For you, it's an appeal. A kind of hopeful magic. You say I will be well because you fear I won't be.”
― Holly Black, The Wicked King

“I wanted to show you that you could trust me, that you didn't need to give me orders for me to do things. I wanted to show you that I believed you'd thought it all through. But that's no way to rule. And it's not really even trust, when someone can order you to do it anyway.”
― Holly Black, The Wicked King

“Yes,' I say, but my voice fails me. It comes out all breath. 'Yes.'

He leans forward in the chair, eyebrows raised, but he doesn't wear his usual arrogant mien. I cannot read his expression. 'To what are you agreeing?'

'Okay,' I say. 'I'll do it. I'll marry you.'

He gives me a wicked grin. 'I had no idea it would be such a sacrifice.'

Frustrated, I flop over on the couch. 'That's not what I mean.'

'Marriage to the High King of Elfhame is largely thought to be a prize, an honour of which few are worthy.'

I suppose his sincerity could last but only so long. I roll my eyes, grateful that he's acting like himself again, so I can better pretend not to be overawed by what's about to happen.”
― Holly Black, The Wicked King

“He looks up at me with his night - colored eyes, beautiful and terrible all at once.
"For a moment," he says, "I wondered if it wasn’t you shooting bolts at me."
I make a face at him.
"And what made you decide it wasn’t?"
He grins up at me.
"They missed.”
― Holly Black, The Wicked King

“Have I drunk too much? Merely a cup of poison for my breakfast and another for my dinner," Cardan says.”
― Holly Black, The Wicked King

“Do you have questions like that for your father?'

'Why am I the way I am?' His tone makes it clear he's proposing something I might suggest he ask, not really wondering about it. 'There are no real answers, Jude. Why was I cruel to Folk? Why was I awful to you? Because I could be. Because I liked it. Because, for a moment, when I was at my worst, I felt powerful, and most of the time, I felt powerless, despite being a prince and the son of the High King of Faerie.'

'That's an answer,' I say.”
― Holly Black, The Wicked King

“Marry me,' he says. 'Become the Queen of Elfhame.'

I feel a cold shock come over me, as though someone has told a particularly cruel joke, with me its target. As though someone looked in to my heart and saw the most ridiculous, most childish desire there and used it against me. 'But you can't.'

'I can,' he says. 'Kings and queens don't often marry for something other than a political alliance, true, but consider this a version of that. And were you queen, you wouldn't need my obedience. You could issue all your own orders. And I would be free.”
― Holly Black, The Wicked King

“I look for the trick, because this must be one of those faerie bargains that sound like one thing but turn out to be something very different. 'So let me guess, you want me to release you from your vow for your promise to marry me? But then the marriage will take place in the month of never when the moon rises in the west and the tides flow backward.'

He shakes his head, laughing. 'If you agree, I will marry you tonight,' he says. 'Now, even. Right here. We exchange vows, and it is done. This is no mortal marriage, to require being presided over and witnessed. I cannot lie. I cannot deny you.”
― Holly Black, The Wicked King

“Surely the idea of a few more months tied to me can't be such a hardship that you'd like to tie yourself to me for years.”
― Holly Black, The Wicked King

“He slides my ruby ring off his finger. 'I, Cardan, son of Eldred, High King of Elfhame, take you, Jude Duarte, mortal ward of Madoc, to be my bride and my queen. Let us be wed until we wish for it to be otherwise and the crown has passed from our hands.'

As he speaks, I begin to tremble with something between hope and fear. The words he's saying are so momentous that they're surreal, especially here, in Eldred's own rooms. Time seems to stretch out. Above us, the branches begin to bud, as though the land itself heard the words he spoke.

Catching my hand, he slides the ring on. The exchange of rings is not a faerie ritual, and I am surprised by it.

'Your turn,' he says in to the silence. He gives me a grin. 'I'm trusting you to keep your word and release me from my bond of obedience after this.'

I smile back, which maybe makes up for the way that I froze after he finished speaking. I still can't quite believe this is happening. My hand tightens on his as I speak. 'I, Jude Duarte, take Cardan, High King of Elfhame, to be my husband. Let us be wed until we don't want to be and the crown has passed from our hands.'

He kisses the scar of my palm.

I still have his brother's blood under my fingernails.

I don't have a ring for him.

Above us, the buds are blooming. The whole room smells of flowers.

Drawing back, I speak again, pushing away all thoughts of Balekin, of the future in which I am going to have to tell him what I've done. 'Cardan, son of Eldred, High King of Elfhame, I forsake any command over you. You are free of your vow of obedience, for now and for always.'

He lets out a breath and stands a bit unsteadily. I can't quite wrap my head around the idea that I am... I can't even think the words. Too much has happened tonight.”
― Holly Black, The Wicked King

“King of the land, I am not here to fight your sharp tongue. My blood is cold and I prefer blades.”
― Holly Black, The Wicked King

“He reaches up and presses my hand to his face. 'It's funny, isn't it, how I mocked you for your mortality when you're certain to outlive me.'

'You're not going to die,' I insist.

'Oh, how many times have I wished that you couldn't lie? Never more than now.”
― Holly Black, The Wicked King

“Glad you're up to mocking.'

'I hope it's the last thing about me to go.”
― Holly Black, The Wicked King

“I will lie down,' he says, letting me guide him toward his enormous bed. Once there, he does not let go of my hand. 'If you lie with me.”
― Holly Black, The Wicked King

“We trade kisses in the darkness, blurred by exhaustion.”
― Holly Black, The Wicked King

“Orlagh waits for us in a choppy ocean, accompanied by her daughter and a pod of knights mounted on seals and sharks and all manner of sharp-toothed sea creatures. She herself sit on an orca and is dressed as though ready for battle. Her skin is covered in shiny silvery scales that seem both to be metallic and to have grown from her skin. A helmet of bone and teeth hides her hair.

Nicasia is beside her, on a shark. She has no tail today, her long legs covered in armour of shell.”
― Holly Black, The Wicked King

“I watch grass grow between Nicasia's toes and wildflowers spring up all along the gently rising hills, as I notice the trees and brambles sprout, and as the trunk of a tree begins to form around NIcasia's body.

'Cardan!' she screams as bark wraps around her, closing over her waist.

'What have you done?' Orlagh cries as the bark moves higher, as branches unfold, budding with leaves and fragrant blossoms. Petals blow out on the waves.

'Will you flood the land now? Cardan asks Orlagh with perfect calm, as though he didn't just cause a fourth island to rise from the sea. 'Send salt water to corrupt the roots of our trees and make our streams and lakes brackish? Will you drown our berries and send your merfolk to slit our throats and steal our roses? Will you do it if it means your daughter will suffer the same? Come, I dare you.”
― Holly Black, The Wicked King

“Solo porque yo esté resentida con el amor no significa que a todo el mundo tenga que pasarle lo mismo”
― Holly Black, The Wicked King

“If you hurt me, I wouldn't cry,
I would hurt you back”
― Holly Black, The Cruel Prince / The Wicked King / The Queen of Nothing