You have to ration sympathy and grief in here the way you ration school supplies.

Not a hundred feet away the river roared over a cliff's-edge, and were weren't really leaves, even if I'd been careful to forget that.

Not a hundred feet away the river roared over a cliff's-edge, and we weren't really leaves, even if I'd been careful to forget that.

My lady, I did not think you could answer it, when I took you from your home without your leave, and set value only on your gift. But I am answered truly. You have given fair return for insult thrice over and set your worth: higher than my life and all my kingdom and all who live therein, and though you send my people to the fire, I can claim no debt to repay. It is justly done.

There had been something gentle in her, a pool of magic, not a running stream that had washed away all the ordinary parts of her life.

I grabbed back at him just as incautiously with my hand and my magic both, even as he pressed magic on me from his side as well. His breath huffed out sharply, and our workings caught on one another, magic gushing into them.