That was a perfectly reasonable explanation," she said grumpily. "Perhaps my advisers don't lie to me." "Isn't that what you'd want?" asked Giddon. "Well, yes, but it doesn't elucidate my puzzle!" "If I may say so, Lady Queen," said Giddon, "it's not always easy to follow your conversation." "Oh, Giddon," she said, sighing. "If it's any comfort, I don't follow it either.

That's interesting," Bitterblue said. "You think a conscience requires fear?

There is nothing unnatural in this world," he said. "An unnatural thing is a thing that could never happen in nature. I happened. I am natural, and the things I want are natural. The power of your mind, and your beauty, even when you've been drugged in the bottom of a boat for two weeks, covered in grime and your face purple and green - your unnatural beauty is natural. Nature is horrifying.

How acutely sometimes the presence or absence of people mattered

Everybody was strange. In a fit of frustration, she scratched out strange and wrote the word CRACKPOTS in big letters.

Maybe it was for the best that she'd been so foolish, for if she'd known how hard this would be, perhaps she wouldn't have done it.

Bacon improved things dramatically.