It was just that she had the need to tell him something honest, something honest and unhappy, because cheerful lies tonight were too depressing and too sharp, turning in on her like pins

Brigan spun around to face the man, swearing with as much as exasperation and fury as Fire had ever heard anyone swear. The man scuttled away in alarm.

Katsa sat in the darkness of the Sunderan forest and understood three truths. She loved Po. She wanted Po. And she could never be anyone's but her own.

In the saddle again, Fire mulled over the commander's trust, prodding it around, like a candy in her mouth, trying to decide whether she believed it.

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.

Katsa now sat calmly on the stomach of her vanquished foe. "He was handsome," said said. Po moaned. "Was he beat-to-a-pulp handsome, or perhaps just push-down-a-flight-of-stairs handsome?" "I would not push a seventy six year old man down a flight of stairs," said Katsa indignantly.

The more I see and hear, the more I realize how much I don't know.