And everything I did afterward — every hour of it — was aimed at one thing above all others: killing that voice before it could take root.

Not just removing her from the danger, though I did that.

But making certain, through years of steady, patient, unfailing love, that the lesson she carried out of that banquet was not I make people mad but its opposite: when someone hurts you, it is never your fault, and the people who love you will always, always come and get you. That was the voice I intended to install in its place.

That was the whole war.