"Find something useful to do with your morning,' she thought to him as she neared her chambers. 'Do something heroic in front of an audience. Knock a child into a river while no one's looking and then rescue him."
"Katsa and Po were trying to drown each other and, judging from their hoots of laughter, enjoying it immensely."
"But that's how memory works,"Bitterblue said quietly. "Things disappear without your permission, then come back again without your permission."And sometimes they came back incomplete and warped."
"Madlen came to sit beside her on the bed. "Lady Queen,"she said with her own particular brand of rough gentleness. "It is not the job of the child to protect her mother. It's the mother's job to protect the child. By allowing your mother to protect you, you gave her a gift. Do you understand me?"