But Amaranth rolled her eyes and slouched in her throne. “Shatter him, Hand.” She flicked a hand at the High Lord of the Summer Court. “You may do what you want with the body afterward.” The High Lord of the Summer Court bowed—as if he’d been given a gift—and looked to his subject, who had gone still and calm on the floor, hugging his knees. The male faerie was ready—relieved. Rhys slipped a hand out of his pocket, and it dangled at his side. I could have sworn phantom talons flickered there as his fingers curled slightly.“I’m growing bored, Hand,” Amaranth said with a sigh, again fiddling with that bone. She hadn’t looked at me once, too focused on her current prey. Rhysand’s fingers curled into a fist. The faerie male’s eyes went wide—then glazed as he slumped to the side in the puddle of his own waste. Blood leaked from his nose, from his ears, pooling on the floor. That fast—that easily, that irrevocably … he was dead.“I said shatter his mind, not his brain,” Amaranth snapped. The crowd murmured around me, stirring. I wanted nothing more than to fade back into it—to crawl back into my cell and burn this from my mind. Hamlin hadn’t flinched—not a muscle. What horrors had he witnessed in his long life if this hadn’t broken that distant expression, that control? Rhysand shrugged, his hand sliding back into his pocket. “Apologies, my queen.” He turned away without being dismissed, and didn’t look at me as he strode for the back of the throne room. I fell into step beside him, reining in my trembling, trying not to think about the body sprawled behind us, or about Clare—still nailed to the wall. The crowd stayed far, far back as we walked through it. “Whore,” some of them softly hissed at him, out of her earshot; “Amaranth’s whore.” But many offered tentative, appreciative smiles and words—“Good that you killed him; good that you killed the traitor.

— Sarah J. Maas

But anyone with witch-blood in their veins was worth keeping an eye on. Or Thirteen.

— Sarah J. Maas

But death was her curse and her gift, and death had been her good friend these long, long years.

— Sarah J. Maas

But perhaps the monsters needed to look out for each other sometimes.

— Sarah J. Maas

But the king was frowning. "I expected you a month ago." Aedion actually had the nerve to shrug. "Apologies. The Staghorn were slammed with a final winter storm. I left when I could." Every person in the hall held their breath.

— Sarah J. Maas

But they held tighter to each other, past and present and future; flickering between an ancient hall in a mountain castle perched above Corinth, a bridge suspended between glass towers, and another place, perfect and strange, where they had been crafted from stardust and light. A wall of night knocked them back. But they could not be contained. The darkness paused for breath. They erupted.

— Sarah J. Maas

By the Veil, three were made, Of the gate-Stone of the Word:Obsidian the gods forbade And stone they greatly feared. In grief, he hid one in the crown Of her he loved so well, To keep with her where she lay down Inside the starry cell. The second one was hidden In a mountain made of fire, Where all men are forbidden Despite their great desires. Where the third lies Will be never told By voice or tongue Or sum of gold.

— Sarah J. Maas

Captain just squeezed Elide’s fingers. “You find Elena Sardothien. Give her this. No one else. No one else. Tell her that you can open any door, if you have the key. And tell her to remember her promise to me—to punish them all. When she asks why, tell her I said that they would not let me bring the cloak she gave me, but I kept a piece of it. To remember that promise she made. To remember to repay her for a warm cloak in a cold dungeon.

— Sarah J. Maas

Captain unleashed the last of her shadow fire, tipping her face to the ceiling, toward a sky she'd never see again. She took every wall and every column. As she brought it all crashing and crumbling around them, Captain smiled, and at last burned herself into ash on a phantom wind.

— Sarah J. Maas

Cauldron save you. Mother hold you. Pass through the gates, and smell that immortal land of milk and honey. Fear no evil. Feel no pain. Go, and enter eternity.

— Sarah J. Maas