Nightmare Fuel / Small Favor

• What the Denarians do to Ivy. Torture of adults is horrible enough, but to a child? Nicodemus may be Affably Evil, but he’s still, at the core, a monster, and that scene solidifies it.
  • The most of the torture is actually done by Tessa and Rosanna. Not because Nicodemus and Deirdre have any problem with that, but because that way, if Ivy escapes them in any way, Tessa and her followers would be her main target. It’s this kind of cold calculation and forethought that's really scary about Nicodemus, far more than his power or main goals.
  • Let's not forget Marcone. They abduct him merely as bait for Ivy, and then torture him for days for the sake it, without having anything to gain. Even beyond the obvious, Marcone's Berserk Button is children being harmed. It's difficult to think of something he'd consider worse than being Forced to Watch a child be tortured, knowing she was only in a position to be kidnapped because of him. Yes, the Denarians are monsters.
  • A highly disturbing one is when the Denarians finally capture Ivy. Tessa grabs a gas canister and shoves it down Ivy's mouth, making her bleed and probably breaking her teeth. And Tessa was clearly enjoying it. Now it was Kincaid and Harry Forced to Watch, who they planned to kill the moment Ivy was taken out. Not to mention they planned on torturing them to draw her out. Only Harry's desperate move saves both of them.
• The hob attack in the subway. Or more specifically, Harry mentioning that hobs don't just kill their victims, but like to drag them back into the Nevernever. And they were going after kids.
• The description of what Harry feels like when he realizes he’s been Mind Raped into forgetting about fire magic. It really brings home the horror of what it would be like to have someone rummaging around in your mind, even when it's after the fact.
  Someone had been in my head.
  Someone had been in my head!
• Mab freezing the water in Harry's eyeballs is a pretty disturbing scene too. On one hand, she luckily doesn't go all the way through. On the other, the fact she does it just as a petty revenge is also a scary thought on its own.
• The unnerving feeling Harry gets as he approaches, and then climbs, the island for the first time. Nothing Is Scarier is in full effect, and his narration gives off a subtly frightening impression of just how wrong the place feels.
• The ever-escalating, various Gruff attacks on Harry. They come out of nowhere. Especially since he has at first no idea why they are out for his blood.
• While it’s in self defense, the way Charity brutally murders one of Gruffs is very much Family-Unfriendly Death - Human Pincushion followed by Your Head Asplode.
  • Fridge Horror - had she still had her magic, the elder brothers would have come after her in revenge, as they took great offense to the fact that Harry injured another in his escape using iron, when Harry only injured his foot in an injury that probably isn't even permanent.
  • Another Gruff injury. Gard's locker's security measure heavily injures Bigger Gruff, even ripping one leg off cleanly. Clearly No Kill like Overkill is favoured by Gard.
• Throughout the story, Mab has been using Grimalkin as a translator. At the end of the book, she speaks a handful of lines in her own voice... and the sheer apocalyptic rage in her words is enough to leave Harry bleeding from his nose and ears.
  • Crosses into Tear Jerker when Cold Days reveals that the reason Mab has so thoroughly lost control of her emotions is because this is when she's realised her daughter has to die.