“She’d already taken a first step away from those smothering bindings when she’d announced herself a wicked queen, without apology, and then refused to change her presentation despite Mirjana’s urgings. But over the past week of steady, affectionate intimacy with a man who’d never asked her to change, she’d finally begun to wonder: what if she let go of those fears at a deeper, far more vulnerable level? Could she trust any lover to see her true self and not try to shape her into something more palatable?” — Queen Saskia, The Wicked Sorceress of Kitvaria

Review:

Hidden Cinnamon Roll FMC x Visible Cinnamon Roll MMC: 

“Was this man ever less than gentle?” — Saskia about Fabian/Felix 

And how in all the gods’ names was she meant to resist a man who offered her such comfort? 

Standing out in the Crowd…Together: 

“For once, she truly wished that Mirjana was by her side to interpret social cues for her.”

“Everyone agreed that my scandalous powers were required to seize the throne from my uncle for the sake of the kingdom. Now that he’s gone and I wear the crown, though, the highest Kitvarian nobles and a fair few of my fellow rulers find the thought of a wicker queen… unnverving.” His head titled. “And do you wish to settle their nerves by hiding your powers and your nature now? I don’t believe the queen of Norrne and Balravia have ever taken that particular approach.” No, they hand’t, had they? Lorelei and Ailana would laugh in the faces of anyone who asked either of them to fit in and hide their strength. 

How the MCs both impact each other positively: 

“So you’ll have to decide for yourself whether it’s worth continuing to serve as my first minister even with the understanding that I’ll never become the queen you always wanted.” — Saskia to her First Minister 

“Felix had given up, years ago, on making any difference to his nation or his empire. But now in depth of his captivity, he saw the truth at last. He had never been truly weak at all. He had only been tricked and tortured into thinking so. Now it was time to save himself and become the Archduke he should have been from the beginning.” 

"A Witch, a goblin and Jenny Greenteeth are off to seek the King of the Fairies,' he said. 'What a delicious disaster this could be."

"I've never been quite sure what it is that I am; apart from a Jenny, that is. Jenny Greenteeth, that's my name. And it's my mother's, and her mother's, all the way back upstream to the source of all the rivers and lakes in the country."

"I'm sure your own mother or grandmother told you about Jenny Greenteeths. We make a good story for a winter's night when the wind is howling down the chimney and the fire is casting long shadows on the wall. That's the best kind of night for stories. I bet you liked to curl up with a blanket and listen to tales about the bogeymen, the pixies and the hobgoblins. Jennys belong in fairy stories, and like the other fae creatures, we're more real than your mothers would like to believe."

"I frowned. That certainly wasn't the lesson I wanted her to learn from our collaboration. I might not have eaten her but I certainly wasn't good. I wasn't bad either, I simply was.

There's bad magic and good magic just like there are bad humans and good humans,' I said, picking my words carefully. 'Most of us low fae aren't either one.'"

"I like to keep the lake looking neat and tidy. You wouldn't know it from the surface,
but my lake is spotless, with excellent water circulation and the best crop of brown trout in western England."

"Any Jenny can make another Jenny, but it doesnt happen very often. We dont give birth to our own babies. There aren't any male Jennys and frankly the idea of human reproduction makes me feel a bit sick. We make our children from the unwanted offspring of others."

"I was surprised at how happy it made me to think of future company. I had always thought I was content to live alone in the lake."

"Well, I didn't need them anyway. I had been doing find on my own for a thousand years, I would do fine again. Maybe I would be gone by the time they came back for me; if they came back at all. people rarely did in my experience - they left and didn't return."