“I guess you get all my money, I said. And I'm not even dead. I was trying for a joke, but it came out sounding macabre.Hush, he said. He was still kneeling on the floor. You know I'll always take care of you.I thought, already he's starting to patronize me. Then I thought, already you're starting to get paranoid.”

“You're getting better, my lady.""Don't patronize me.""No, really, Your Highness. When you started painting five years ago, I could never tell what it was you were trying to depict.""And this is a painting of . ."Ashe paused. "A bowl of fruit?" he asked hopefully.Sarene sighed in frustration._______________________________"Beautifully—which is more than I can say for the painting." He paused for a moment. "It's a horse, right?"Sarene scowled."A house?" he asked."It is not a bowl of fruit either, my lord," Ashe said. "I already tried that." "Well, she said it was one of the paintings in this room," Lukel said. "All we have to do is keep guessing until we find the right one.""Brilliant deduction, Master Lukel." Ashe said.”

“I already made icing. I told you not to buy any.""Oops," I said, taking another scoop. "Looks like I messed up again. Guess I'll have to eat this."He glanced toward me, giving a pointed look to the two containers I had set beside me. "All of it?" he asked."Maybe if you're nice, I'll share...But considering you've already met your niceness quote for the year, I wouldn't bet on it. And you can't have any sprinkles.""There goes my reason for living.""I thought that was to make me miserable.”

“Taking care of you," he said mildly. "I'm getting you ready for bed right now. And if you start throwing up all of that poison you drank tonight, I'll take you to the bathroom and hold your hair out of your face for you.”

“Why shouldn't Mom trust me, Dad" Why are you so determined to make me out to be the bad guy all the time?" I stared at the side of his face, willing him to make eye contact. He didn't. "I've been doing really good late and you don't even care.""Yet you still managed to get into trouble tonight," he said."You have no idea what happened tonight," I said, my voice ratcheting up a notch. "All you know is that, because I was involved, I'm somehow guilty of something. You could at least pretend to care, you know. You could at least try to understand."Dad gave a sardonic little laugh. "I'll tell you what I understand," he said. "I understand that when you're left to your own devices you get into trouble, that's what I understand. I understand I was trying to have a happy, restful evening with Briley and once again you screwed it up.”

“Sometimes I think I'll never really belong anywhere, or trust anyone. I think I need to learn how to stop caring about that.""You can't decide not to care," Sean said. "You can only control your response.""Is that really possible?" I asked."It really is," he said. "It even starts to get a little bit easier.""Really?" My voice sounded like a stranger's. "When?”