Ivan had contrived somehow in the dark of night to replace every watermelon in the watermelon patch with a gravestone, and every gravestone in the engraver's lot with a watermelon

Saf keeps a vast range of bullies on hand at all times.

She looked at him then, but his image blurred behind tears that swelled into her eyes. She must leave. She must leave this room, because she wanted to hit him, as she had sworn she never would do. She wanted to cause him pain for taking a place in her heart that she wouldn't have given him if she'd known the truth. "You lied to me," she said. She turned and ran from the room.

She would like to restrain from cruelty and receive no admiration for it.

Only a person with the true heart of a dictionary-writer would be lying in bed, three days after being stabbed in the gut, worrying about his P's.

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

Well then," Roen said briskly, "are you sleeping?" "Yes." "Come now. A mother can tell when her son lies. Are you eating?" "No," Brigan said gravely. "I've not eaten in two months. It's a hunger strike to protest the spring flooding in the south." "Gracious," Roen said, reaching for the fruit bowl. "Have an apple, dear.