[ For most of his life, Byerly had lived with the firm belief that romantic relationships were absurd, because no one could possibly be everything. No one could be so perfect that you were in love with their personality and their looks and their wit and their behaviors went well with yours and also they were absolute tigers in bed.

Turns out there are perfect people in the world. Who knew? ]

Hm.

[ A little breathiness there too. But: work. Work is not done. ]

I don't know. It would be better if we had more true allies amongst the merchant princes. But our window of opportunity narrows with every day.