Spring was spare but not shy. It had welcomed in the sun and sent rare patches of flowers shooting up bravely in the throng of the city. Many of the trees in Rhysdon’s parks were also beginning to leaf out into a lacy cloud of green so cheery that even Quincy—who was accustomed to thinking about walking only as a means to an end or as a means to calm herself down before someone else came to an end—looked about her and came close to granting the walk some kind of virtue in itself.
