" How do you always know just the right thing to say?”

  “Do I?” He looked surprised. Then he smiled his crooked, shy smile.

  I blinked a few times. I was a twenty-first-century woman, and I was not going to be conquered by any random facial expression. No matter how adorable it was.

  “It might be strange for you to think of it this way,” he said. “But I do know you quite well. I spent … a long time thinking about what I would say to you, if only you could hear me. "

― Zoë Marriott , The Night Itself (The Name of the Blade, #1)