"Reckless is what I am," Oliver said. "Boldness is the requirement for the worst of mistakes – and if it be mistakes that you fear making with me, then let me make worse ones in your place, so that you could never fear exceeding them."
'A mistake?' Nila wanted to laugh at him. "You think yourself to be soooo clever, Oliver Patrick," she told him. Perhaps it was because he had spent so long trying to improve his strategy, but he must have thought that he needed to spell it out for her. She must have thought that she could not see ahead, towards what he was pointing to.
But even if she could see it, she could not deny his effect. He dragged her, kicking and screaming, to the forefront of what that fear was, and he held it there, ready to take it from her. As clever as he was, he'd realized his course of action, and Nila had realized it too.
