He brought his new sword round and set it across his thighs, and in his face was an expression Tarr had seen only on the faces of children on the Queen of Dreams’s Gift-Day, a brightness, flushed, eyes eager to see what waited beneath the dyed snakeskin wrappings. ‘It’s just a sword, Corabb,’ said Smiles. ‘Really.’ Tarr saw that wondrous expression in Corabb’s face fall away suddenly, slapped back into hiding.
