“He looked at her rather as a man looks at a problem that he would very much prefer to do without. She supposed it was a distinction of a sort to be a harassment to a king.”

“The man was an enigma. One minute he was looking at her as though he wouldkiss her senseless, the next he refused to even talk to her, much less look at her.”

“A Kiss," said Mogget sleepily. "Actually, just a breath would do. But you have to start kissing someone sometime, I suppose.""A breath?" she asked. She didn't want to kiss just any wooden man. He looked nice enough, but he might not be like his looks. A kiss seemed too forward.”

“Life is not a problem to be solved but a work to be made, and that work may well utilize much raw material we would prefer to do without.”

“In that case" Tessa said, feeling hot blood rise to her face,"I think I would prefer it if you called me by my Christian name, as you do with Miss Lovelace.Will look at her, slow and hard, then smiled. His blue eyes lit when he smiled. "Then you must do the same for me," he said. "Tessa."She had never thought about her name much before, but when he said it, it was as if she were hearing if for the first time-the hard T, the caress of the double S, the way it seemed to end on a breath. Her own breath was very short when he said, softly, "Will.""Yes?" Amusement glittered his eyes.With a sort of horror Tessa realized that she had simply said his name for the sake of saying it; she hadn't actually had a question.”

“She shook her head. She was so pale under the diffuse lamp-light that she looked almost transparent, as if Simon could have looked right through her. The way, he supposed, he always had.”