The door was locked and Alexia, resourceful as she was, had not yet learned to pick locks. Though she mentally added it to her list of useful skills she needed to acquire along with hand-to-hand combat and the recipe for pesto. If her life were to continue on its present track which after 26 years of obscurity, now seemed to mainly involve people trying to kill her, it would appear that acquiring a less savory skill set might be necessary. Although she supposed pesto making ought to be termed 'more savory'.

I suspect it may be like the difference between a drinker and an alcoholic; the one merely reads books, the other needs books to make it through the day.

But we were talking about me and my problems." Sophronia looked Monique up and down gravely. "I don't think we're going to solve those in the space of one carriage ride.

What do you want?" Sophronia was moved to exasperation. "Me? Stockings and breeches to come back in fashion. I do miss seeing a man's calves.

[She] lost her patience, a thing she was all too prone to misplacing.

The ill-informed masses included her own family among their ranks, a family that specialized in being both inconvenient and asinine.

Alexia blinked stupidly at the Beta from around the earl’s upper arm. Her heart was doing crazy things, and she still could not locate her kneecaps. She took a deep breath and put some serious attention into tracking them down.