Hamlet's not sure of the words for what's happening between them. Fortunately, Horatio is a cunning linguist.

Talking at someone is only fun for so long. That's all being a sect leader is: talking and talking to people bound by courtesy to listen to you. It's so fucking dull. A relief, then, to face one’s equal, and no less an old friend who is inclined to interrupt you whenever you ramble. He likes it. It’s one of Jiang Cheng’s best qualities.

In the years after Guanyin Temple, Nie Huaisang attends to unfinished business.

(People wouldn't do it if it didn't feel good.)

There's a kind of unlucky energy in him when he's at rest, something at work inside of John of which he's only the feverish engine; the heat in him stirs when they are as close as this and she doesn't know what to do with it.

Anne has got some stuff to work through about becoming queen, and Richard is an obliging audience.