“Vel took both of her hands and stepped backwards on to the gangplank. ‘No!’ she squealed, pulling him back on to the quay.‘What?’‘You might fall in, going backwards.’ His grip on her hands tightened enough to hurt. ‘Ow!’‘I’m going up.’ He glowered at her. ‘I’m going backwards. I’m going now. Are you coming, or shall I tell the others to come and wave you goodbye?’That earned him a glower in return. ‘You're a brute. I hate you and I’m only coming to keep Ren safe from you.”

“To be different is a lonely thing, and she has been lonely for such a long time. What she does frightens people, and she thinks, “Why shouldn't they be frightened? It's not normal: no one else does what I can do.”

“Vel took both of her hands and stepped backwards on to the gangplank. ‘No!’ she squealed, pulling him back on to the quay.‘What?’‘You might fall in, going backwards.’ His grip on her hands tightened enough to hurt. ‘Ow!’‘I’m going up.’ He glowered at her. ‘I’m going backwards. I’m going now. Are you coming, or shall I tell the others to come and wave you goodbye?’That earned him a glower in return. ‘You're a brute. I hate you and I’m only coming to keep Ren safe from you.”

“I'm sorry,’ she told him finally, because there was nothing else to say. His dazed expression slowly turned to a frown, but not of anger; it was a look nearer to disappointment.‘No, ye're not.’ Penor spoke without anger or venom, in a voice of pure reason. ‘Ye're glad it weren't Kerin. Better any of us, just so long as it’s not Kerin.”

“Renia, tell me: does the thought of dying scare you?’He asked softly, and with such concern in his voice, that it all welled up in her at once and caught her by surprise.‘Yes.’ Her voice broke, and the tears came. She could not stop them. ‘Is that what I must do, to save them?”

“Will you be bringing that outspoken maid of yours?’‘Tela? Yes. If I come.’‘She makes me nervous. I can’t read her.’‘Nor can I.’‘Well of course not, if I can’t.’‘But I trust her.’Cedas' turn to misstep. He had heels on, to make him as tall as her, and she was in dance slippers. It hurt.‘Not that far,’ she reassured him.”