Finally someone takes me seriously enough to ask for my word of honor, and it’s a villain.

Angry men with pointy things sent to secure a foreign city are pretty much alike anywhere. That's what I've heard. So far nothing's convinced me different.

We'll abduct Garian. Or Jason." "And—?" "And dump them into the ocean. Nobody would ever pay a ransom for them.

Why did I laugh at his sorry, bedraggled appearance? Because ridiculousness made a repellant situation more bearable.

Because you showed one face to all the rest of the world, and another to me.

A wager?" I repeated. "Yes," he said, and gave me a slow smile, bright with challenge. ... "Stake?" I asked cautiously. He was still smiling, an odd sort of smile, hard to define. "A kiss." My first reaction was outrage, but then I remembered that I was on my way to Court, and that had to be the kind of thing they did at Court. And if I win I don't have to collect. I hesitated only a moment longer, lured by the thought of open sky, and speed, and winning. "Done," I said.

When people first discover beauty, they tend to linger. Even if they don’t at first recognize it for what it is.