“Ja-nee, there had been some good times at the academy over Scrabble boards. Of course, the long evenings had always ended in recriminations when one or other recruit insisted that 'pzxtrri' was a word, and the others had told him to prove it, and he'd said Fine, give me a dictionary, and they'd said You know we don't have a dictionary, and he'd said Then shut your face, and they'd said Make me, and he'd gone for his service pistol. But before the inevitable arrival of the dog unit with the pepper spray, there had been some real friendships made.”

“They'd manage. Her ghost from the future had said so. He'd been right about the bad coming. Now she had to trust good would come as well.”

“When he'd been small, people had said things like, "And what do you want to be, little man?" and he'd said, "I don’t know. What have you got?”

“But more than that, he admired the way she'd always spoken her mind. He remembered that after they'd gone out a few times, he'd said to her what he said to all women he dated-that he wasn't ready for a steady relationship. Unlike the others, though, Allie had simply nodded and said, "Fine." But on her way out the door, she'd turned and said: "But your problem isn't me, or your job, or your freedom, or whatever else you think it is. Your problem is that you're alone. Your father made the Hammond name famous, and you've probably been compared to him all your life. You've never been your own person. A life like that makes you empty inside, and you're looking for someone who will magically fill that void. But no one can do that but you.”

“his wartime experience had taught him to trust his instincts, even though he'd never been sure where they'd come from.”

“He should have said something, why hadn't he? Costis wondered. In fact, the king had. He had complained at every step all the way across the palace, and they'd ignored it. If he'd been stoic and denied the pain, the entire palace would have been in a panic already, Eddisian soldiers on the move. He'd meant to deceive them, and he'd succeeded. It made Costis wonder for the first time just how much the stoic man really wants to hide when he unsuccessfully pretends not to be in pain.”