“Sicarius wore his usual guess-my-thoughts-if-you-can-mask, though she sensed he did not approve.”

“She had tried to hide the discomfort behind the mask of competence that she usually wore, only to realize that in her hurry, she must have left it behind somewhere.”

“He wore his happiness like a mask and the girl had run off across the lawn with the mask and there was no way of going to knock on her door and ask for it back.”

“A different word usually came to my mind when I thought of Yeva, though it did sound a lot like “witch.”

“Sicarius, as usual, regarded her with the blandness of a particularly featureless rock, then walked away.”

“She thought of the hardness and the coldness she had cultivated over those years and wondered if they were the mask she wore or if the mask had become her self. If the longing inside her for kindness, for warmth, for compassion, was the last seed of hope for her, she didn't know how to nurture it or if it could live.”