Zuzana Daughter Of Smoke And Bone Quotes

You are a conniving, deceitful hussy. I stand in awe." "You're sitting." "I sit in awe.

...You are not just going to vanish like this, Karou. This isn't some goddamn Narnia book.

Be a Samurai. Because you just never know what's behind the freaking sky.

The two of them were stoic and stone-faced and ten feet apart, currently not even looking at each other, but Zuzana had the impression of a pair of magnets pretending not to be magnets. Which, you know, only works until it doesn’t.

So violent. You want to mug and tase everybody these days." "I do," Zuzana agreed. "I swear I hate more poeple every day. Everyone annoys me. If I'm like this now, what am I going to be like when I'm old?" "You'll be the mean old biddy who fires a BB gun at kids from her balcony." "Nah. BBs just rile 'em up. More like a crossbow. Or a bazooka.

Scientist and smart fellow learner-of-stuff, want to do samurai-monster training with us? We intend to become dangerous.

Cake for later, cake as a way of life.

What a lovely display of personhood. He's like a good book cover that grabs your gaze. Read me. I'm fun but smart. You won't be able to put me down.

World peace for dinner," mused Mik, scratching his beard stubble. "Does that come with fries?" "It freaking better," said Zuzana. "Or I will send it freaking back.

Zuzana arched an eyebrow. She was a master of the eyebrow arch, and Karou envied her for it. Her own eyebrows did not function independently of each other, which handicapped her expressions of suspicion and disdain.

We’re playing Three Wishes,” she told her friend. “Cake, hot bath, soft bed. How about you?” “World peace,” said Karou. Zuzana rolled her eyes. “Yes, Saint Karou.” “Cure for cancer,” Karou went on. “And unicorns for all.” “Bluh. Nothing ruins Three Wishes like altruism. It has to be something for yourself, and if it doesn’t include food, it’s a lie.” “I did include food. I said unicorns, didn’t I?” “Mmm. You’re craving unicorn, are you?” Zuzana’s brow furrowed. “Wait. Do they have those here?” “Alas, no.” “They did,” said Mik. “But Karou ate them all.” “I am a voracious unicorn predator.

I want to build spires in their minds and dance shadows through like marionettes, chased by whispers and hints of the unspeakable.

My kingdom for caffeine,” she mumbled, making prayer hands up at the ceiling. When, however, in the next second, Issa entered with tea, Zuzana was not grateful. “Coffee, I meant coffee,” she told the ceiling, as if the universe were a waiter that had gotten her order wrong.

I’m lucky I’m even alive,” she announced. “When I was little, I sucked on duck eyeballs.

Let me tell you something about me. I love vengeance like normal people love sunsets and long walks on the beach. I eat vengeance with a spoon like it's honey. In fact, I may not even be a real person, but just a vow of vengeance made flesh.

My phone buzzes. It’s from Karou: a list of conversation openers that I won’t be needing. —a) Hi. I’m Zuzana. I’m actually a marionette brought to life by the Blue Fairy, and the only way I can gain a soul is if a human falls in love with me. Help a puppet out? —b) Hi. I’m Zuzana. The touch of my lips imparts immortality. Just sayin’. —c) Hi. I’m Zuzana. I think I might like you.

It had worked. She understood. Things can kill you. All kinds of things, like toys, or older brothers. And as she'd grown up, that list had just gotten longer and longer.

When he started to renew his protest, she held up a hand. "What are you more afraid of: them or me with low blood sugar?

I know. Life is so unfair. I'm still not going to pee on Karou's ex-boyfriend for you." "What? I wasn't even going to ask you to." In her most reasonable tone, Zuzana explained explained, "I just want you to pee in a balloon so I can drop it on him.

There was, between her and Mik, a fairy-tale promise: that when he had performed three heroic tasks, he could ask for her hand. She’d meant it in jest, but he’d taken it to heart, and was only one task down out of three—though secretly Zuzana accepted his fixing the air-conditioning in their last hotel room as a heroic act and counted it.

Around Mik, my powers desert me. I lose basic motor function, like my brain focuses all neural activity on my lips and shifts into kiss preparedness mode way too early, to the detriment of things like speech, and walking.

Oh, gross. Your stomach is full of butterfly barf!

Please tell me you have to pee." "What? No. No, I do not. Don't even ask." "Oh, come on. I'd do it myself if I could, but I can't. I'm a girl." "I know. Life is unfair. I'm still not going to pee on Karou's ex-boyfriend for you." "What? I wasn't even going to ask you to." In her most reasonable tone, Zuzana explained, "I just want you to pee in a balloon so I can drop it on him." "Oh." Mik pretended to consider this for approximately one and a half second. "No.

So, you wouldn't marry me." "Ridiculous question. I'm eighteen!" "Oh, it's an age thing?" He frowned. "You don't mean wild oats, do you? We're not going to have some stupid break so you can experience other---" Zuzana put a hand over his mouth. "Gross. Don't even say it.

This wasn't a person, Zuzana thought, this was greed wearing skin.

The humans were sitting cross-legged on the floor in a circle of soldiers, pointing at things and learning more Chimaera words: salt, rat, eat, which unfortunate combination led to Zuzana rejecting the meat on her plate. "I think it's chicken," Mik said, taking a bite. "I'm just saying there were a lot more rats around here earlier." "Circumstantial evidence." Mik took another bite and said, in passable Chimaera and to guffaws of laughter, "Salty delicious rat." "It's chicken," insisted one of the Shadows That Live. Karou wasn't sure which it was, but she was flapping her arms like wings, and even producing chicken bones to prove it.

All of this cuteness, it was one of nature's great bait and switches, because... that wasn't all there was to Zuzana Nováková. Not even a little bit. Deciding to take her on was akin to a fish deciding idly to gobble up that pretty light bobbing in the shadows and then--OH GOD THE TEETH THE HORROR!--meeting the anglerfish on the other side.

Rapture cults had packed their suitcases and were massing together in great vigils, waiting for the end. "All bogus," she'd told Zuzana. "Just a bunch of crackpots waiting for the Apocalypse." "Because, fun, right?" Zuzana rubbed her hands together in mock glee. "Oh, boy. The Apocalypse!" "Right? I know. How much does your life have to suck to want the Apocalypse?

I want to be the guy in a movie who's, I don't know, out walking his rabbit on a leash (I don't have a rabbit) and knows exactly how to strike up a quirky, compelling conversation. Though maybe if you're walking a rabbit on a leash, you don't even have to speak; the rabbit does the work for you. Not that Zuzana seems like the rabbity type. Maybe if I were walking a fox on a leash. Or a hyena. Yeah, if I had a hyena, I'd probably never have to start a conversation again. Except for, "Sorry my hyena ate your leg.

Nerves," Mik told Karou. "Bad?" "Terrible." Stepping up behind Zuzana, he bent down to enfold her in a spoon-hug. "Ferociously, dreadfully awful. She's unbearable. You take her. I've had enough." Zuzana batted at him, then squealed as he buried his face in the curve of her throat and made exaggerated kissing noises.

Me, sweep him off his feet? I know. The laws of the jungle and romance novels would have it the other way around, but I’m not going to wait one more second for that.

Now, let's not be hasty,' said Mik 'What exactly is a samurai, really? Do you think that's something we should know before we wish it?' 'Good point. It might turn us both into Japenese men.' She squinted at him. 'Would you still love me if I were a Japenese man?' 'Of course

Anyone who would wear all white like that clearly has issues

So what,’ said Zuzana. ‘They had to be pretty stupid butterflies to fall for him anyway. You’ll grow new ones with more sense. New wise butterflies.

Plus, it would be fun. Don’t you think? I’ve always wanted to tase someone. Zap!” Zuzana mimicked convulsions.

She thought Zuzana’s tininess was perfect, like a fairy you found in the woods and wanted to put in your pocket. Though in Zuzana’s case the fairy was likely to be rabid, and bite.

Seriously?" Zuzana muttered. "As if he knows. Like he didn't tell the last twenty-five reporters because he was saving this excellent secret knowledge just for her?

Or possibly “I like cake.” (She likes cake. This is one of four things I know about her. The others are: 2. Her name is Zuzana, 3. she’s in her last year at the Lyceum, so is probably eighteen, which is young but not heinously young, and 4. she can freeze a person’s blood with a look. I’ve seen it happen, though I have not been on the receiving end. She has voodoo eyes, and is more than slightly terrifying.

Let’s just get this out of the way so I can relax. Karou, your friends aren’t going to eat us, are they?” No, Karou thought. They are not. She whispered back, “I don’t think so. But try not to look delicious, okay?” She was rewarded with a snort from Zuzana. “That poses a problem, seeing as how we are totally delicious.

Think of the Christians fed to the lions because they wouldn't renounce their faith. As if their god wouldn't forgive them their desire to life?..." "Are you kidding me? You're going to blame the Christians, not the Romans? How about they just don't throw them to the goddamn lions in the first place? Don't delude yourself. You're the monster here.

That widow’s peak is preposterous. God. It really makes you feel the sad dearth of widow’s peaks in daily life. We could, like, use him as breeding stock to seed widow’s peaks into the populace.”“My god. What’s with all the mating and seed talk?”“I’m just saying,” Zuzana said reasonably. “I’m crazy about Mik, okay, but that doesn’t mean I can’t do my part for the proliferation of widow’s peaks. As a favor to the gene pool. You would, too, right? Or maybe…” She shot Karou a sidelong glance. “You already have?

Karou loved Zuzana for her willingness to play out such silliness on a long kite string.

Tienes razón. Muy aburrida. Empezaré a coleccionar sellos. Eso es interesante, ¿no? - No. A menos que te los vayas a pegar por el cuerpo y los utilices como ropa.

¿Hola? ¿Quién está ahí? Que se vuelva a poner Zuzana.¿Zuzana? Hay una tía ñoña al teléfono haciéndose pasar por ti…

There were some piled furs in the corner, but they were gross and old, and Zuzana was pretty sure that a variety of otherworldly vermin were living out rich, multigenerational sagas in them.

Zuzana wondered if she could have been wrong about him, but dismissed the thought. Anyone who would wear all white like that clearly had issues. Just looking at him made her wish she had a paintball gun, but hell, you couldn't pack for every eventuality.

- Estamos jugando a pedir tres deseos. Los míos son un pastel, un baño caliente y una cama mullida. ¿Y tú qué quieres? - La paz en el mundo. - Sí, santa Karou. - La cura para el cáncer. Y unicornios para todos. - Bah. Nada arruina este juego como el altruismo. Tiene que ser algo para ti, y si no incluye comida, es mentira. - He incluido comida. He dicho unicornios, ¿no? - Mmmm. ¿Tienes antojo de unicornios? Espera. ¿Los hay aquí? - Lamentablemente no. - Los había, pero Karou se los comió todos. - Soy una voraz depredadora de unicornios.

Man,” amended Karou, rising and bending again in mock prayer. “Thank you, gods, for this man—” She interrupted herself to ask Zuzana, in her normal voice, “Wait. Does that make you a woman?” She only meant that it was strange to go from thinking of Zuzana—and herself, too—as a girl to a woman. It just sounded weirdly old. But Zuzana’s response, employing full eyebrow power in the service of lechery, was, “Why, yes, since you ask. This man did make me a woman. It hurt like holy hell at first, but it’s gotten better.” She grinned like an anime character. “So. Much. Better.” Poor Mik blushed like sunburn, and Karou clamped her hands over her ears. “La la la!” she sang, and when Ziri asked her what they were saying, she blushed, too, and did not explain—which only made him blush in turn, when he grasped the probable subject matter.

She was all dark-eyed intensity. Something was lost in her. Karou saw it and mourned. War does that, nothing for it. Reality lays siege. Your framed portrait of life is smashed, and a new one thrust upon you. Its ugly, and you don't even want to look at it , let alone hang it on the wall, but you have no choice.

Mi sento liquefatta, come un cetriolo dimenticato nel cassetto della verdura, e ho solo voglia di buttarmi nella spazzatura tenendomi il più possibile in punta di dita. Chi è questo sacco di melassa che finge di essere me? Intollerabile. Se Karou riesce a partire alla ricerca della gente più tremenda per rubargli i desideri, figurarsi se io non riesco a incontrare un maledetto ragazzo. Sono una fata idrofoba. Sono una pianta carnivora. Sono Zuzana. E il ragazzo del violino non avrà seppure il tempo di capire chi gli è piombato addosso.

From: Zuzana Subject: Miss Radio Silence To: Karou

It looked for all the world as Karou had described it in her one brief e-mail to Zuzana: like a sandcastle, a very big sandcastle. It was monumental: an entire town, really – lanes and plazas, neighborhoods, a caravansary, granary, and palace – all of it echoing empty. Its creators had dreamed on a legendary scale, and to stand in its flagstone court, mud walls and peaked roofs jutting overhead, was to feel shrunk to the size of a songbird.

Karou stood straight. Her hair had been caught as in a backdraft, sucked forward and then turned loose, and it floated on the churning air. She was still smiling, cold. With her drifting hair, and her palms outfaced with their staring ink eyes, she looked malevolent, even to Zuzana, like some species of fell goddess in the unconvincing guise of a girl. Zuzana, Mik, and

I don’t want to go,” Zuzana admitted in a small voice. “Back to tourists and angel cults and puppets and real life?” She was whining and she knew it. “I want to make monsters and do magic and help Karou.

De: Zuzana hadarabiosa@agitasudiminutopuño.net Para: Karou karouazul@chicadeacaparaalla.com

Damn,” said Karou, seeing a trio of scruffy backpackers lounging at their favorite table. “Pestilence is taken.” “Everything is taken,” said Zuzana. “Stupid Lonely Planet book. I want to go back in time and mug that damn travel writer at the end of the alley, make sure he never finds this place.” “So violent. You want to mug and tase everybody these days.” “I do,” Zuzana agreed. “I swear I hate more people every day. Everyone annoys me. If I’m like this now, what am I going to be like when I’m old?” “You’ll be the mean old biddy who fires a BB gun at kids from her balcony.” “Nah. BBs just rile ’em up. More like a crossbow. Or a bazooka.” “You’re a brute.” Zuzana dropped a curtsy, then took another frustrated look around at the crowded cafe. “Suck. Want to go somewhere else?

- ¿Así que puedo elegir entre aguantar el olor a pies durante todo el camino o clavarme los ojos las púas del cuello? Impresionante. Ahora vociferaba: - ¡Lo estás haciendo a propósito! - mientras Virko se inclinaba hacia la izquierda para que Zuzana resbalara y quedara ladeada en su improvisada montura de correas hasta que él girara hacia el otro lado y la enderezara. Virko se reía, pero Zuzana no. Estiró el cuello buscando a Karou y gritó: - ¡Necesito otro caballo. ¡Éste se cree muy gracioso!

Tengo un presentimiento sobre Zuzana. Creo que no es buena o mala, si no las dos cosas -la mezcla perfecta de ambas, un enroscado cono de helado de bondad y maldad.

-No hemos infringido ninguna ley - se volvió hacia Zuzana y preguntó en checo -: No existe ninguna ley que prohíba volar, ¿verdad? - Claro que sí. La ley de la gravedad.

Ordinarily, such extravagance would have made them feel awkward and small, peasants in the presence of gentry. Indeed, it would make them feel exactly as this woman had intended them to feel. But not today. In light of recent experience, these insulated, rarified people put Zuzana in mind of expensive shoes kept in their box the three hundred and sixty-two days of the year when they weren’t being worn. Wrapped in tissue, safe from harm, and all they knew of life was gala events and the inside of the box. How dull. How dumb. By contrast, the grime of her journey, the outré inappropriateness of the state of her, it felt like armor. I earned this dirt. Respect. The dirt. “That’s

so my choice is to breathe feet the whole way or spear my eyeballs out on neck spikes? Awesome."-Zuzana