“I followed a hunch,” she said. “I had to—and I was right.”

“I liked this.  I liked this a lot.  Memaw said a boy would woo me.  I had just been wooed in one evening’s conversation.  If my hunch was right, he seemed to be wooed by me as well. He wasn’t even blind. This could be good.”

“The Empress will follow where you go," she said."So she will," Mat said. "As I'll follow where she goes, I suppose. I hope that doesn't lead us in too many circles.”

“I think she was just travelling. I don't think she had any idea of finding whoever it was she was following.”

“Sam hauled open the library door."There you are!" Whit pushed up from the desk he'd been hunched over. "We thought you two had given up on us.""Unlike some people I know," I said, removing my mittens and scarf, "we don't live here.""She says that now." Sam followed me toward Whit's and Orrin's desks, where they worked over flat electronic screens. "But the first thing she said when I showed her the library was that we should move in."Orrin lifted an eyebrow, oddly delicate for someone so large. "The acoustics would be terrible.”

“I was a rule-follower. I obeyed all forms of authority. I had never before encountered a situation where the authority was clearly wrong and I had to stand up for what was right.”