" Morozko sat cross-legged on the other side of the fire. He held a knife and was carving a bird out of wood. She sat up, stiffly, light and weak and empty. How long had she been asleep? The fire was good on her face. “Why carve things of wood,” she asked him, “if you can make marvelous things of ice with only your hands?” He glanced up. “God be with you, Vasilisa Petrovna,” he said, with considerable irony. “Is that not what one says in the morning? I carve things of wood because things made by effort are more real than things made by wishing. "

― Katherine Arden , The Girl in the Tower (The Winternight Trilogy, #2)