" You sound like you're in love," Abdumasi says. "I read that you can fall in love with someone before you've ever met them. And when you see them at last, you say, '*Oh, that's why I hurt,*' like you just found an old splinter buried in your foot."

You hate splinters, so you shudder. "

― Seth Dickinson , The Monster Baru Cormorant (The Masquerade, #2)