“...Zachary winched a few more letters onto his last name and declared himself king of the Z aficionados.”

“A weak King must be what other Kings have been; a strong King is himself, and from then on the meaning of the name of King is changed.”

“Do whatever you must, Karigan," he told her, his voice so quiet it would not carry, "to come back. You must come back. To me." ~King Zachary”

“That the last two letters in her name were the first two in his, a silly thing he never mentioned to her but caused him to believe that they were bound together.”

“He had a last name for a first name, and a last name for a last name, but only because it came after his first name (the one that sounds like a last name). Otherwise, his last name would sound like a first name.”

“Hugh refused to leave the scene of the action. He seated himself on the top stair in the hall, banged his head against the railing a few times, just by way of uncorking the vials of his wrath, and then subsided into gloomy silence, waiting to declare war if more “first girl babies” were thrust upon a family already surfeited with that unnecessary article.”