“What if I arrange to be around Lord Akeldama during the full moon?” The earl looked daggers. “I am certain he would be extremely helpful in a fight. He could ruthlessly flatter all your attackers into abject submission.”

“Juliana?” the words were low and far—too calm for her husband, who had found that he rather enjoyed the full spectrum of emotion now that he had experienced it.“Yes?”“What are you doing twenty feet in the air?”“Looking for a book.”“Would you mind very much returning to the earth?”“What are you thinking, climbing to the rafters in your condition?”“I am not an invalid, Simon, I still have use of all my extremes.”“You do indeed—particularly your extreme ability to try my patience—I believe, however, that you mean extremities.”

“He flatters me because he knows I am flattered by him flattering me. And that flatters him. So when he flatters me, he is really flattering himself.”

“My lord...I can explain-," Louis-Cesare began, looking less than certain that he could do anything of the kind.Radu held up a hand. "I am sure there is a perfectly good reason why my niece is naked and tied to her bed. I am also equally certain that I do not wish to hear it".”

“I sing louder and he looks right at me, finally getting it, because what I am saying with the rise of my voice is that I know he understands what music is about, he has seen the Lord in it, even if it's not my Lord.”

“What would it be like if I had something to defend - a home, a country, a family - and I found myself attacked by these ghostly men, these trusting boys? How do you fight an enemy who fights with neither enmity nor anger but in submission to orders from superiors, without protest and without conscience?”