Red Queen

by

Victoria Aveyard

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Chapter 1 Quotes

Families can go years without hearing a thing, only to find their sons and daughters waiting on the front doorstep, home on leave or sometimes blissfully discharged. But usually you receive a letter made of heavy paper, stamped with the king’s crown seal below a short thank-you for your child’s life. Maybe you even get a few buttons from their torn, obliterated uniforms.

Related Characters: Mare Barrow (speaker), Shade Barrow, Tramy Barrow, Bree Barrow
Related Symbols: Blood
Page Number: 2
Explanation and Analysis:

This is the true division between Silvers and Reds: the color of our blood. This simple difference somehow makes them stronger, smarter, better than us.

Related Characters: Mare Barrow (speaker)
Related Symbols: Blood
Page Number: 9
Explanation and Analysis:

In school, we learned about the world before ours, about the angels and gods that lived in the sky, ruling the earth with kind and loving hands. Some say those are just stories, but I don’t believe that.

The gods rule us still. They have come down from the stars. And they are no longer kind.

Related Characters: Mare Barrow (speaker)
Page Number: 11
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 2  Quotes

I’ve always wanted her hair, though I’d never tell her that. Where hers is like fire, my hair is what we call river brown. Dark at the root, pale at the ends, as the color leeches from our hair with the stress of Stilts life. Most keep their hair short to hide their gray ends but I don’t. I like the reminder that even my hair knows life shouldn’t be this way.

Related Characters: Mare Barrow (speaker), Gisa Barrow
Page Number: 13-14
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 3 Quotes

He’s right. It’s cruel to give hope where none should be. It only turns into disappointment, resentment, rage—all the things that make this life more difficult than it already is.

Related Characters: Mare Barrow (speaker), Farley, Kilorn Warren
Page Number: 26
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 4 Quotes

As more and more footage rolls, showing the marble façade of the courthouse explode into dust or a diamondglass wall withstanding a fireball, part of me feels happy. The Silvers are not invincible. They have enemies, enemies who can hurt them, and for once, they aren’t hiding behind a Red shield.

Related Characters: Mare Barrow (speaker)
Related Symbols: Blood
Page Number: 35
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 5 Quotes

There are worse lives to live. Don’t feel sorry for me.

Related Characters: Mare Barrow (speaker), Cal (Tiberias Calore), Gisa Barrow
Page Number: 47
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 6 Quotes

I don’t know who hired you or what they told you about the job, but it starts to wear on you. It’s not all changing bedsheets and cleaning plates. You have to look without seeing, hear without listening. We’re objects up there, living statues meant to serve….Especially now, with this Scarlet Guard business. It’s never a good time to be a Red, but this is very bad.

Related Characters: Ann Walsh (speaker), Mare Barrow
Page Number: 54
Explanation and Analysis:

From my vantage point, hidden behind the flowers, I’m level with the king’s box and slightly behind it. Mare Barrow, a few yards from the king. What would my family think, or Kilorn for that matter? This man sends us to die, and I’ve willingly become his servant. It makes me sick.

Related Characters: Mare Barrow (speaker), Kilorn Warren, King Tiberias
Page Number: 59
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 7 Quotes

So this is a pageant.

A violent one, meant to showcase a girl’s beauty, splendor—and strength. The most talented daughter. This is a display of power, to pair the prince with the most powerful girl, so that their children might be the strongest of all. And this has been going on for hundreds of years.

I shudder to think of the strength in Cal’s pinkie finger.

Related Characters: Mare Barrow (speaker), Cal (Tiberias Calore)
Page Number: 66
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 8 Quotes

“I’d bow, but I might fall over,” I say to Queen Elara, and immediately I wish I could call back the words. She’s a Silver, I can’t talk to her that way. She could put me in the stocks, take away my rations, punish me, punish my family. No, I realize in my growing horror. She’s the queen. She could just kill me. She could kill us all.

Related Characters: Mare Barrow (speaker), Queen Elara
Page Number: 77
Explanation and Analysis:

You have no occupation and are scheduled for conscription on your next birthday. You attend school sparingly, your academic test scores are low, and you have a list of offenses that would land you in prison in most cities. Thievery, smuggling, resisting arrest, to name but a few. All together you are poor, rude, immoral, unintelligent, impoverished, bitter, stubborn, and a blight upon your village and my kingdom.

Related Characters: King Tiberias (speaker), Mare Barrow
Page Number: 83
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 9 Quotes

Remember the person you’re supposed to be, and remember well…You are pretending to be raised Red, but you’re Silver by blood. You are now Red in the head, Silver in the heart….From now until the end of your days, you must lie. Your life depends on it, little lightning girl.

Related Characters: Queen Elara (speaker), Mare Barrow, Maven Calore, King Tiberias
Related Symbols: Blood
Page Number: 95
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 11 Quotes

After a moment of tense silence, the queen turns on her heel. “Very well.” Like any wife, she hates her husband for challenging her, and like any queen, she hates the power the king holds over her. A bad combination.

Related Characters: Mare Barrow (speaker), Queen Elara (speaker), Cal (Tiberias Calore), Maven Calore, King Tiberias, Evangeline Samos
Page Number: 110
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 13 Quotes

Thinking all Silvers are evil is just as wrong as thinking all Reds are inferior….What my people are doing to you and yours is wrong to the deepest levels of humanity. Oppressing you, trapping you in an endless cycle of poverty and death, just because we think you are different from us? That is not right. And as any student of history can tell you, it will end poorly.

Related Characters: Mare Barrow
Related Symbols: Blood
Page Number: 131
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 14 Quotes

The rage rises again, and I don’t even want to control it. But what can I do about it? What can I do to avenge my brother, or even try to save the others?

Related Characters: Mare Barrow (speaker), Cal (Tiberias Calore), Shade Barrow
Page Number: 161
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 17 Quotes

My legs move on their own, swinging out in a maneuver I’ve used in the back alleys of the Stilts a hundred times. Even on Kilorn once or twice. My foot connects with her leg, sweeping it out from under her, and she crashes to the floor next to me. I’m on her in a second, despite the exploding pain in my back. My hands crackle with hot energy, even as they collide against her face. Pain sears through my knuckle-bones but I keep going, wanting to see sweet silverblood.

Related Characters: Mare Barrow (speaker), Cal (Tiberias Calore), Maven Calore, Kilorn Warren, Evangeline Samos
Related Symbols: Blood
Page Number: 205
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 18 Quotes

…[Y]ou’re in danger, from everyone. Even Maven. Even me. Anyone can betray anyone.

Related Characters: Julian Jacos (speaker), Mare Barrow, Maven Calore
Page Number: 225
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 19 Quotes

Think what their lives will buy, what their deaths will accomplish. How many of your people could be saved?

Related Characters: Maven Calore (speaker), Mare Barrow
Page Number: 236
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 21 Quotes

Walsh hugs me, taking me by surprise. “I don’t know how,” she mutters, “but I hope you become queen one day. Imagine what you could do then? The Red queen.”

Related Characters: Mare Barrow (speaker), Ann Walsh (speaker)
Page Number: 269
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 22 Quotes

It’s not long before I find myself standing in the doorway of Julian’s old classroom, and the sight shocks me. The stacks of books, the desk, even the maps are gone. The room looks larger but feels smaller. It once held whole worlds but now holds only dust and crumpled paper. My eyes linger on the wall where the huge map used to be. Once I couldn’t understand it; now I remember it like an old friend.

Related Characters: Mare Barrow (speaker), Julian Jacos
Page Number: 276
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 24 Quotes

Trees and bushes grow over concrete, reclaiming little pockets and corners, but even more have been cleared away. Shattered glass crunches under my feet and clouds of dust drift in the wind, but somehow this place, the picture of neglect, doesn’t feel abandoned. I know this place from the histories, from the books and old maps.

Related Characters: Mare Barrow (speaker), Maven Calore, Farley
Page Number: 310
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 26 Quotes

The king’s corpse lands with a thud, his head rolling to a stop a few feet away. Silverblood splashes across the floor in a mirrored puddle, lapping at Cal’s toes. He drops the melting sword, letting it clang against stone, before falling to his knees, his head in his hands. The crown clatters across the floor, circling through the blood, until it stops to rest at Maven’s feet, sharp points bright with liquid silver.

Related Characters: Mare Barrow (speaker), Cal (Tiberias Calore), Maven Calore, Queen Elara, King Tiberias
Related Symbols: Blood
Page Number: 341
Explanation and Analysis:
Epilogue Quotes

A strange warmth falls over me, a warmth like the sun though we are deep underground. It’s as familiar to me as my own lightning, reaching out to envelop me in an embrace we can’t have. Even though they call Cal my enemy, even though they fear him, I let his warmth fall on my skin, and I let his eyes burn into mine.

Related Characters: Mare Barrow (speaker), Cal (Tiberias Calore)
Page Number: 383
Explanation and Analysis:
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