147
" Helga’s gray pupils glued to the ground, unable to look at her student for a long time. Slowly, her long white hair retracted into her skull, growing scratchy and short. The grooves of her face magically deepened and the skin hardened to a leathery tan beneath a growing white beard. Her cheeks hollowed, her nose fattened, her eyebrows bushied, her body burlying to a barrel shape . . . until at last Yuba the Gnome gazed up at his former students, in the same lavender dress and wobbly heels. “Do you mind if I change?” he asked quietly. Sophie gawped at her old Forest Group teacher, morphed from a girl into a boy. She twirled to Agatha, appalled. “That’s how you want us to get in the boys’ school? By turning us into . . . gnomes?” Agatha banged her head against the wall. "
― Soman Chainani , A World Without Princes (The School for Good and Evil, #2)
152
" Tedros turned away. 'I don't like being hurt.'
'Who is hurting you?'
'No one.' He swallowed. 'I'm okay.'
'You're lucky, then, because I fell quite hurt myself.'
He looked back at me. 'You do? Where are you hurt?'
'Here,' I said, my hand on my heart.
'Oh.' He nodded. 'Who hurt you?'
'Someone I loved very much,' I said.
Tedros nodded. 'Me too.' He sniffled and curled into a bean shape, his back against my knee. 'When does the hurt go away?'
'Once you make friends with it. Once you come to see the hurt not as something to fear or run away from, but as an important part of you. As important as love and hope and happiness. All of them are pieces of you heart, each as important as the other. But ignoring the hurt or pretending it's not there doesn't make it go away. It just means that you're not using all of your heart. Soon that piece might even dry up and break away. We don't want that. A strong king needs all of his heart. And the funny thing is, once you're bold enough to welcome the hurt, to give it a hug and face it unafraid... then suddenly, it's gone. "
― Soman Chainani , One True King (The School for Good and Evil: The Camelot Years, #3)