Great! He has indigestion, so let's torture him with cake.

Mercy was more frightening than murder, because it was harder.

If she took Po as her husband, she would be making promises about a future she couldn't yet see. For once she became his wife, she would be his forever. And, no matter how much freedom Po gave her, she would always know that it was a gift. Her freedom would be not be her own; it would be Po's to give or to withhold. That he never would withhold it made no difference. If it did not come from her, it was not really hers.

When Brocker arrived he took her hands and held them to his face and cried into them.

Your eyes are beautiful," he said, and she felt warm suddenly, warm in the sun that dappled through the treetops and rested on them in patches.

Part a of scene from 'Bitterblue' between Madlen (Bitterblue's medicine woman) and Bitterblue: Madlen came to sit beside her [Bitterblue] on the bed. "Lady Queen," she said with her own particular brand of rough gentleness. "It is not the job of the child to protect her mother. It's the mother's job to protect the child. By allowing your mother to protect you, you gave her a gift. Do you understand me?

But everyone has some kind of power to hurt people.