Then she marched to the pillows and beat them mercilessly until they lay puffed out like obedient clouds.

This may be a thing you neither want nor need," she said. "But I'd rather you have it, wishing didn't, than not have it and wish you did.

Normal. She wasn't normal. A girl Graced with killing, a royal thug? A girl who didn't want the husbands Randa pushed on her, perfectly handsome and thoughtful men, a girl who panicked at the thought of a baby at her breast, or clinging to her ankles.

She groped forward, hands and feet, in search of darkness, distance and solitude.

A consciousness was like a face you saw once and forever recognized.

Garan snorted. "Now that we know about his indigestion, we can torture him with cake.

It was just that she had the need to tell him something honest, something honest and unhappy, because cheerful lies tonight were too depressing and too sharp, turning in on her like pins