I knelt and opened up my lute case. Moving the lute aside, I pressed the lid of the secret compartment and twisted it open. I slid Threpe's sealed letter inside, where it joined the hollow horn with Nina's drawing and a small sack of dried apple I had stowed there. There was nothing special about the dried apple, but in my opinion if you have a secret compartment in your lute case and don't use it to hide things, there is something terribly, terribly wrong with you.

My thought is, if you're a book lover, you're going to enjoy winning a book even if it's not something you'd ordinarily pick up on your own. It's a chance to expand your horizons a little.

I've got a solid grounding in history, sociology, anthropology, philosophy, etc etc. That means I actually have a good idea about how societies change and evolve. I know how a lot of them have actually functioned through the years. I can put together a culture that's cool and different, while still being logically consistent, so that it feels real. So many fantasy worlds are either implausible, cookie-cutter, or both. Mine aren't.

If I could sum it up in 50 words, I wouldn't have needed to write a whole novel about it.

I also felt guilty about the three pens I'd stolen, but only for a second. And since there was no convenient way to give them back, I stole a bottle of ink before I left.

By your logic I should also be in charge of Solinade dances, needlework, and horse thieving.

I'm honestly not a big fan of pitching things. I'm a firm believer of letting the product speak for iteself.