We are mates, whether we meet once in a lifetime, once a decade, or every day. Nothing changes when we are apart. - Sheri S. Tepper

For several days they cut, trimmed, and stacked the slender trunks, trying to pick ones that were straight and uniform in size, being careful not to clear-cut any area of the forest, a deed which Jep’s mom would have regarded as only slightly less dishonorable than genocide.

An intelligent woman herself, the Duchess had overestimated the Marshal’s intelligence. Not an ambitious woman, she had underestimated his ambition. So are many misread by other’s lights.

All men believed they had their own magics in bed.