Calf love doesn't usually survive amputation, Your Majesty.

I would very much like to strangle someone. Why don't you go away until I decide it isn't you?

I can't leave her there all alone, surrounded by stone walls... She's too precious to give up.

As a ten-year-old boy, the Thief of Eddis could stop a grown man in his tracks with a single look. Where had that look gone?

I'm sorry, Dite." Dite shrugged away the apology. "You have spared my brother when you could have killed him and you have offered me escape from the cesspit of my family and this court. You know what it means to me, to make music in the court of Ferria. You've put a purse and an impossible dream in my hand. I don't know why you should apologize." "Because I am exiling you, Dite. I intend to raze your patrimony and salt its earth. You emphatically do not need to thank me.

Who knows but that you will get up to find that the world has inverted itself yet again?

You will make the boy Thief king?" he [Nahuseresh] said. "When you could have had me?" Attolia allowed a slight smile. "A fine revenge for the loss of a hand," said the Mede, close to snarling. "I will have my sovereignty," said Attolia thinly. "Oh, yes, a fine one-handed figurehead he will make," spat Nahuseresh. Then he remembered Attolia's flattery earlier that morning. "Or do I insult your lover?" he asked. "Not a lover," said Attolia. "Merely my choice for king.