What are you grinning at?" Katsa demanded for the third or fourth time. "Is the ceiling about to cave in on my head or something? You look like we're both on the verge of an enormous joke." "Katsa, only you would consider the collapse of the ceiling a good joke.

Alone with Giddon again, Bitterblue considered him, rather liking the mud streaks on his face. He looked like a handsome sunken rowboat.

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.

It's only water," she said. "Tell that to a drowning man," Giddon said.

Lady Queen," he said, "You've given me all I want. You're the queen a librarian dreams of.

Well, none of it would ever end if she was too afraid for it to begin.

Wonderful," Garan grumbled when he'd gone. "We'll grow a reputation for our kindness to lawbreakers.