Drink this," she says. "What is it?" my throat feels swollen. I swallow hard. "What's going to happen?" "Can't tell you that. Just trust me." I press air from my lungs and tip the contents of the vial into my mouth. My eyes close.

Your daughter is doing well here. I've been overseeing her training." Since when does "overseeing" include throwing knives at me and scolding me at every opportunity?

she sighs, then breaks a piece off the muffin in my hand. 'Hey. There are plenty more just five feet to your right.' 'then you shouldn't be so concerned about losing some of yours.' she says, grinning. 'Fair enough.

We both have war inside us. Sometimes it keeps us alive. Sometimes it threatens to destroy us.

I am collecting the lessons each faction has to teach me, and storing them in my mind like a guidebook for moving through the world. There is always somthing to learn, always somthing that is important to understand

To me, when someone wrongs you, you both share the burden of that wrongdoing—the pain of it weighs on both of you. Forgiveness, then, means choosing to bear the full weight all by yourself.

If they told us what to believe, and we didn't come to it on our own, is it still true?