⟪ A momentary smile, there one moment and gone in the next, and many a thing can stand between her and this reunion she might crave. Vows and oaths, blood, fathers, a thousand little things that can not all be overcome. This, too, is a cruelty of the world: love means little, compared to so much else.

Not that there is one who understands love the way she does, the way Jaime does. ⟫

You would spare him? ⟪ She does motion for the girl to seat herself on one of the lower bunks – they haven't been given much in the way of comfort, but it seems a step away from standing as they do now, like dogs in a barren yard. ⟫ Fool or not, a man worth his salt would share in your pain.

⟪ It should be his pain, too. She has never been one to suffer by herself –– and then there is Robert and the things she never spoke of to Jaime, knowing well her twin would commit a crime he would not be forgiven for a second time. Her eyes are very careful on the girl's face: perhaps there is more understanding here than she is for once willing to admit. ⟫

You doubt there will be a reunion?