Fencing isn't really fighting. It's more like chess with the risk of puncture wounds

The feeling of relinquishing responsibility to someone else, letting him take control, was a relief beyond words.

Be careful dear that you don’t end up as the queen of a lonely kingdom

And I wonder how Gage knew this is what my soul has craved. He turns me to face him, his eyes searching. It occurs to me that no one in my life has ever concerned himself so thoroughly with my happiness.

The freedom of saying anything to him, telling all, relieved a burden I hadn't even realized I'd been carrying. In my relentless push to keep moving forward, there had been so many emotions I hadn't let myself inhabit fully, so many things I hadn't talked about. Now I couldn't quite catch up to myself.

These impossible women! How they do get around us!

She had always maintained a cynical facade, using it as a defence against embarrassment, fear, loneliness… but at the moment she felt unusually vulnerable.