Go safely. Go safely, she thought to him. what a silly, empty thing it was to say to anyone, anywhere.

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.

Madlen: 'It's a relief to me, Lady Queen, that in your own pain, you take no interest in hurting yourself.' Bitterblue: 'Why would I? Why should I? It's foolish. I would like to kick the people who do it.' Madlen: 'That would, perhaps, be redundant, Lady Queen.

Your sadness is one of the things that makes you beautiful to me. Don't you see that? I understand it. It makes my own sadness less frightening." (Brigan)

They seemed no closer to the tops of the peaks that rose before them. It was only by looking back, to the forest far below, that she knew they'd climbed.

Brigan was saying her name, and he was sending her a feeling. It was courage and strength, and something else too, as if he were standing with her, as if he'd taken her within himself, letting her rest her entire body for a moment on his backbone, her mind in his mind, her heart in the fire of his. The fire of Brigan's heart was astounding. Fire understood, and almost could not believe, that the feeling he was sending her was love.

Dear Brigan, she thought to herself. People want incongruous, impossible things. Horses do, too.