The wardrobe? It was so full of gowns that he didn't think he could cram himself inside. Besides, it would be awkward if the maid came in to lay out a gown for dinner and grabbed Oliver instead of the blue silk with lace sleeves.

It looks as though your shop is doing well," Luka said gazing around, "Could you help me find a gift for a lady friend of mine?" My heart plunged to my grenn satin slippers, and I had to stare down at Azarte for a minute, petting him hard. Naturally Luka had a "lady friend." She was probably nobly born: the daughter of a count or a duke. I imagined her having thick dark hair and clear skin, and was bitterly jealous. "Of course," I stammered after a time. "What would she like? A gown? A sash?" If she came in for a fitting, I decided to "accidentlly" poke her with every pin.

Even now, Dickon was upstairs, writing sonnets to his new love, while back at Seadown House, Marianne was writing 'Ella' on scraps of paper and then burning them.

Can you be sure?" "I haven't spent the last fifteen hundred years learning how to knit my own socks, boy!" The crone looked like she might box Heinrich's ears, if she could reach them.

I've faced worse than a dressmaker who breaths fire.

Kestilan?" There was that name again. Oliver fought down an irrational surge of jealousy for this mysterious being who took up so much of Petunia's attention.

Er," Oliver said. "He talks even less than the one Lily married," the crone remarked to Walter. "Though when the mood strikes him, he asks just as many questions as Galem." "I'm sorry," Oliver said weakly. The old woman nodded. "You are forgiven," she pronounced in a queenly tones.