The Language of Power (The Steerswoman, #4)

by Rosemary Kirstein

Reeder’s usual exasperating manner was not what it seemed. It had a natural context, a place where it was at home. It needed a second voice; it needed Naio. Without him, Reeder was like the first half of a joke that, lacking its second half, had become puzzling, meaningless, and on endless repetition, annoying.

A diner nearby vacated a chair; the woman appropriated it instantly, pulled it over to Rowan’s table, and sat. She said, with no

What happened to woman waiting for reply? (She gets to it later, but this dilation seemed unnecessary.)

“Were you leading him on?” Bel wondered.

Seriously?

Rowan knew how one sometimes felt a vague responsibility for the actions one’s imagined self took in others’ dreams.

a tiny drizzle of rare chocolate.

Where does thst grow?

Magic animates the inanimate.

the division is not as clear as we think it is. Between what’s alive, and what’s not. I think,” and he watched as his own right hand marked off steps toward his left, “that there are . . . degrees, between. More, alive, less alive . . . I don’t think that there’s any one point where we can say, ‘Here’s where it begins .

“Your eyes aren’t pink,” she said to him. “Um . . . no . . .” She had obviously thought that he might be an albino.

Humans with albinism do not have pink eyes

She wondered, suddenly and irrelevantly, at his history.

Rowan saw now that truly, this was the only way the story could be told. The information was intact, but participation in its unfolding made the knowledge each listener’s personal possession.

Everything might be power; but all power must move by the numbers.