Brigan," she said, annoyed that he had not understood. "I’ll always be beautiful. Look at me. I have one hundred and sixty two bug bites, and has it made me any less beautiful? I’m missing two fingers and I have scars all over, but does anyone care? No! It just makes me more interesting! I’ll always be like this, stuck in this beautiful form, and you’ll have to deal with it." He seemed to sense that she expected a grave response, but for the moment, he was incapable. "I suppose it’s a burden I must bear," he said, grinning.

And the kings were no better to their own people than they were to each others.

Then she marched to the pillows and beat them mercilessly until they lay puffed out like obedient clouds.

Well then, "Katsa said. "Of course, we'll operate with the greatest possible secrecy, Bitterblue. And for what it's worth, we'll deny your involvement to our dying breaths, and I'll kill anyone who doesn't." Bann began to laugh into Raffin's shoulder. Smiling, Raffin said sideways to him, "Can you imagine what it would be like to be able to say that and mean it?

His last thought was that it hadn't been stupidity that had allowed his son to enchant him so easily with words. It had been love.

A man who fights you as he does is no better than an opportunist and no worse than a thug.

She'd lost her fury, somewhere, as they'd talked. She didn't feel it anymore. She wished she did, because she preferred it to the emptiness that had settled in its place.