Home > Work > The Assassin's Curse (The Assassin's Curse, #1)
1 " She moved like water, graceful and soft and lovely. Every part of me wanted to stick out my foot and trip her, just to see her stumble. "
― Cassandra Rose Clarke , The Assassin's Curse (The Assassin's Curse, #1)
2 " Beautiful people, things are to easy for them. They don't know how to survive in this world. Somebody's ugly, or even plain, normal-looking, that means they got to work twice as hard for things. For anything. Just to get peple to listen to 'em, or take 'em serious. So yeah. I don't trust beautiful people. "
3 " I thought the assassin was moving kind of slow for an assassin. Maybe the magic had done something after all. Or maybe he felt sorry for me. That sort of thing happens among cutthroats more often than you'd expect. "
4 " This was why I hated beautiful people. They build you up and then they destroy you. And we let 'em. "
5 " But if a girl don't have her intuition, she don't got anything. "
6 " Tell any grizzled old cutthroat a sob story about a double-cross and a broken heart and he'll eat right out of your hand. "
7 " You can't escape an assasin," He leaned forward, shadows swallowing his eyes. "Hangings, bumbling bureaucrats, dishonest crewman, jail - those you can talk your way out of, you try hard enough. But this kind of death is the is the only kind of death. "
8 " Then I saw that sparkle in Naji's eye and knew he was laughing at me."See?" he said. "Now you know how it feels"I glared at him for a few seconds. He looked kind of pleased with himself, but he also looked kind of happy, and that was enough for me to turn back to my equations. "
9 " Well, look who's on my front porch," he said, speaking Empire with this odd hissing accent. "A murderer and a cross-dressing pirate."I looked down at my clothes, ripped and shredded and covered in mud and sand and dried blood. I'd forgotten I was dressed like a boy."So are you here to kill me or to rob me?" the man said. "I generally don't find it useful to glow when undertaking acts of subterfuge, but then, I'm just a wizard "
10 " Cockiness is useful to fake on occasion, but it'll only get you killed if you believe it. "
11 " You!" I shouted. "What's wrong with you?"He blinked at me."I thought you got turned into a fern.""Oh. Oh, Ananna, I'm sorry I didn't think- "
12 " I'd handed my heart over to him, a damned blood magic assassin, without even realizing it. "
13 " Nobody writes down stories." [Ananna]"They do when they're trapped at sea and bored senseless." [Naji] "
14 " What stopped you? Why didn't you help her?" [Naji] "Cause you're my friend," I said. [Ananna]All the hardness in his features melted away. "Oh. "
15 " He didn't ask - of course he didn't ask - but he did show up at the captain's quarters one evening after dinner looking sheepish. "
16 " Your enthusiasm for learning gives me hope for the future," he said. "We can start right now if you'd like. You don't seem to be...working "
17 " He smelled like magic and sweat and the sea, but there was something else beneath all that, something sweet and warm like honey, and just for a moment I didn't feel afraid anymore. "
18 " You don't realize how much you miss something till it comes back to you, and then you wonder how you went so long without it. "
19 " I can't believe this," I muttered, cradling the skein of water up close to my chest. "Two weeks in the desert all on account of some assassin who doesn't know how to look out for snakes." "If you hadn't killed that snake," Naji said calmly, "I would have killed you." " Oh, shut up. "
20 " I was dozing on the sand, drowsy from the heat of the fire, when Naji shook me awake hours later. I rolled over and looked at him. "You're alive," he said. "Course I'm alive," I snapped. "You're the one who keeps passing out. "
