Location 106:

It was with a sinking heart that the newly arrived ambassador from Seressa grasped that the Emperor Rodolfo, famously eccentric, was serious about an experiment in court protocol. The emperor liked experiments, everyone knew that.



Location 393:

She wasn’t, Danica knew, an especially conventional young woman.



Location 614:

He will probably accept that, Marin is thinking on a pleasant evening in spring. There have been times when his dreams have been more encompassing, but there are only so many ways you can fight the world as it is given to you, and his will be far—very far—from a dismal fate or future.



Location 1065:

SORROW IS ENDURING. It can define a life. Leonora had come to understand this through the course of a year. It could be deep as any well, cold as mountain lakes or forest paths in winter. It was harder than stone walls, or her father’s face.



Location 1106:

She was the one who was kind that first night. There were things she had learned (in joy) from the boy she’d loved and been loved by. These could be shared. It was necessary, what she did in the dark of Miucci’s room. They were to pass as husband and wife, newly wed, and their assigned servants in Dubrava would be watching them, and listening. But Leonora discovered, with surprise, that eliciting gratitude carried a different sort of pleasure, and she permitted herself to feel that, accept it, a form of mercy after a shadowed year.



Location 1175:

‘The son grows next to the father’s tree or seeks higher ground away from it.’”



Location 1422:

“She is the spy?” “I’d say so. Nothing unusual, of course.” “Fucking Seressinis.” Marin grins. “As to that, I never did ask—how was last night?” Drago flushes crimson, which is all the reward a man ought to ever need for a clever line. Unless he’d said it to a woman, perhaps.



Location 7825:

One of her grandchildren would talk to Danica in her mind, silently, for many years, from the first moments after her grandmother died. Another blessing granted, to both of them. This should not happen, perhaps, but it does. We live among mysteries. Love is one, there are others. We must not imagine we understand all there is to know about the world.