If it is an affliction, it is as you said: The gods know me so well they can predict my behavior. They don't control it. They could know I would love… - Megan Whalen Turner

Your Majesty," he asked innocently, "is it true that your cousins once held you down in a water cache?"
Ornon, in the act of putting down his wine cup, paused.
"Is it also true that they wouldn't let you out until you agreed to repeat insults about your own family?

You have heard the queen's advice. My gift is below. Would you wait to see it until you have decided what you will do with hers?

Would I be wrong," Sounis asked one evening as he walked with Eddis, "to think that I talk to you, you talk to Gen, and Gen talks to Attolia, who talks to the magus, who talks to me?"
Eddis laughed. "Not always. Sometimes, as in this case, someone approaches my Eddisian ambassador Ornon, here in Attolia, and he talks to me, I talk to you, you talk to Attolia, Attolia talks to Gen, and he talks to me."
"I see you appear in that progression twice."
"Oh, more than that, because after Gen talks to me, the process reverses. He goes back to Attolia, who talks to you, who go to the magus, who repeats the information to me, who gives it to Ornon, who takes it back to whoever started this particular political ball rolling in the first place.