" Grim gave me a look, but said nothing.

  ‘What?’ I snapped.

  ‘Got a low opinion of yourself.’

  ‘Did I say that?’

  ‘Didn’t have to.’ He drew breath. ‘You don’t want to start believing those things, you know. What they used to say, in that place. The names. The . . .’

  I waited.

  ‘It’s all lies. You know that. But when they keep on saying it, over and over, when they make you say it yourself, when they . . . It’s hard not to believe it. It’s hard not to think you’re the lowest of the low. For some of us, maybe it wasn’t lies, maybe it was the truth. But it was never true for you.’

  For a bit, I couldn’t think of anything to say.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Grim. ‘Shouldn’t have talked about it.’

  ‘You can’t know that,’ I said, setting down my cup and holding my hands out to the fire. Why was it so hard to get warm? ‘You know nothing about me. I might be all those things they said.’

  ‘I do know.’

  At least he hadn’t invited me to share my life story. If there was anything he and I had in common, it was the understanding that we wouldn’t trespass on that forbidden ground. ‘Your faith in me is without any basis in fact,’ I said.

  ‘Faith’s faith,’ said Grim. "

― Juliet Marillier , Dreamer's Pool (Blackthorn & Grim, #1)