Phaedra shook her head. “If your people mean no offense, they should not speak their thoughts out loud in front of their children, Tesadora. Because it will be their children who come to slaughter us one day, all because of careless words passed down by their elders who meant no harm.

Great to know that I'm in love with a girl with a cool name." "It's Taylor's middle name.

People aren’t interested in the truth, Dafar. They’re interested in what keeps them safe. They’re interested in being looked after. They’re interested in a tale being spun... Mighty men have moments of great despair that common people do not want to know about.

I walk down the steps of the verandah towards her and with shaking hands she holds my face between them, sobbing, "Look at my beautiful girl.

I didn't realize until those few days how much a hug meant. To have someone hold you could be the greatest medicine of all.

No. But it's like the argument `don't donate to third-world countries because the money mightn't get to them.' People only say that because it makes them feel better about the fact that they do nothing.

Between now and when we graduate next year there are at least ten weeks' holiday and five random public holidays. There's email and if you manage to get down to the town, there's text messaging and mobile phone calls. If not, the five minutes you get to speak to me on your communal phone is better than nothing. There are the chess nerds who want to invite you to our school for the chess comp next March and there's this town in the middle, planned by Walter Burley Griffin, where we can meet up and protest against our government's refusal to sign the Kyoto treaty." -Jonah Griggs