Tammy: I couldn’t show Daine’s casual life and her other friends, though y’all should know some of them — and most of them are older. The Queen, Buri, Sarge, members of the Riders, Onua, Kuri, the children at Pirate’s Swoop and the palace, Maura of Dunlath and her guardian Douglass of Veldine, Stefan, George and Alanna, members of the palace staff, Raoul and members of the Own, members of the army, people in assorted fiefdoms, all kinds of animals and immortals, Lord Imrah of Legann and his lady . . . . Come on, people! Honestly, all these months and years covering Tortall far and wee, and you think she doesn’t have friends and she didn’t date before Realms? And they did a couple of trips to Carthak, Tusaine, Galla, and the Copper Isles in goodwill journeys for the Crown. She’s a popular young woman with plenty of correspondents and open hospitality invitations wherever they go!
Tammy: There is love magic in this world — hedgewitches make their living off of it, and even the higher-up mages learn not only love spells but counters to them — but like lighting a candle, it’s delicate stuff.
“…did Roger use some kind of (not romantic) love magic to make everyone like him?”
Tammy: No, not at all. Think of the amount of work he’d have to put in to keep touching up such spells for years for a number of people. Since people’s emotions change so often, love spells have to be maintained more than other kinds, unless you want to put a really heavy one on someone — and that kind of spell is really easy to spot, unlike the amorphous veil spell he used on the royals.
He didn’t need love spells. He was very attractive; he’d learned all the tricks to make people feel he cared deeply for them (like attending to no one else but them when they were talking, and soliciting their opinions on important issues), and he knew how to make people feel important. He’d’ve made a great politician.
Words of Tamora Pierce 