I have discovered something else, Throsset of Dowes. And that is that men give women jewels when they have… — Sheri S. Tepper

“How is that possible?”

“To a Wizard, anything is possible,” the Dervish said with more than a hint of scorn. “Or so they lead themselves to believe.”

His understanding is not great, but his sense of power and treachery is unfailing.

“Every promise is like that,” she whispered to herself as she stopped counting strides for a moment. “Every promise has arms and legs and tentacles reaching off into other things and other places, strange bumps and protrusions you don’t see when you make the promise. Then you find you’ve take up some great, lumpy thing you never knew existed until you see it for the first time in the light of morning.”