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“I am curious about your change of heart.' ... For a long moment, Nicasia didn't speak. She picked at a fishcake. Cardan raised his eyebrows. 'Ah, you didn't make the choice to leave him, did you?' 'It's more complicated than that,' she told him. 'And it affects you as well.' 'Does it?' he inquired. 'You must listen! Locke's taken one of the mortal girls as his lover,' Nicasia said, obviously attempting to keep her voice from shaking. Cardan was silent, his thoughts thrown in to confusion. One of the mortal girls. 'You can't expect me to pity you,' he said finally, voice tight. 'No,' she said slowly. 'I expect you to laugh in my face and tell me that it's no more than I deserve.' She looked out toward Hollow Hall, miserable. 'But I think Locke means to humiliate you as much as he does me in doing this.. How does it look, after all, to steal your lover and then tire of her so quickly?' He didn't care how it made him look. He didn't care in the least. 'Which one?' Cardan asked. 'Which mortal girl?' 'Does it matter?' Nicasia was clearly exasperated. 'Either. Both.' It shouldn't matter. The human girls were insignificant, nothing. In fact, he ought to feel delighted that Nicasia had such swift cause to regret what she'd done. And if he felt even angrier than he had before, well then, he had no cause. 'At least you will have the pleasure of seeing what the Grand General does when Locke inevitably mishandles the situation.' 'That's not enough,' she said. 'What then?' 'Punish them.' She took his hands, her expression fierce. 'Punish all three of them. Convince Valerian he'd like tormenting the mortals. Force Locke to play along. Make them all suffer.' 'You should have led with that,' Cardan told her, getting to his feet. 'That I would have agreed to just for fun.” — Holly Black