She couldn't steal herself back from Randa only to give herself away again - belong to another person, be answerable to another person, build her very being around another person.

And of course she understood now why her body wanted to run whenever he appeared. It was a correct instinct, for there was nothing to be got from this but sadness.

Katsa and Po were trying to drown each other and, judging from their hoots of laughter, enjoying it immensely.

Why does everybody throw every troublesome thing into the river?

She would thump them both, and she would apologize to neither.

I love you," he said. "You're more dear to my heart than I ever knew anyone else can be. And I've made you cry; and there I'll stop." She was crying, but not because of his words. It was because of a certainty she refused to consider while she sat before him.

To Garan's credit, the treatment of Dellian prisoners did change after that. One particularly laconic man, after a session in which Fire learned positively nothing, thanked her for it specifically. "Best dungeons I ever been in," he said, chewing on a toothpick. "Wonderful," Garan grumbled when he had gone. "We'll grow a reputation for our kindness to lawbreakers.