“Her clothes were filled with safety pins and hidden tears.”

“There was nothing I wanted to do more than be unconscious again, wrapped in black, gone away. I was raw. I felt swollen with potential tears, like a water balloon filled to burst. Begging for a pin prick.”

“He looked at their shabby clothes in puzzlement.“We were traveling anonymously for safety—” explained the magus.“But surely—”“—and then we were robbed on the road.”“Ah,” said the king, “the danger in being anonymous.”

“Look, you runny-nosed little runt. You're going to back off right now, or I'm going to rip that safety pin out of your nose and pin your mouth shut.”

“His scars were hidden and safe in her hand.”

“For a moment she'd wondered if the seal around her sockets were tight enough to allow the tears simply to go on and fill up the entire lens space and never dry. She could carry the sadness of the moment with her that way forever, see the world refracted through those tears, those specific tears, as if indices as yet unfound varied in important ways from cry to cry.”