What Feasts at Night (Sworn Soldier, #2)

by T. Kingfisher

If this was a fairy tale, it was the kind where everyone gets eaten as a cautionary tale about straying into the woods, not the sentimental kind that ends with a wedding and the words, “And if they have not since died, they are living there still.”

(You really don’t want to drink our wine. We export it because we don’t want to drink it either.)

Tomorrow, in my experience, is only worth worrying about when there’s something you can do about it.

I sometimes think the fundamental disconnect with civilians is that they think a war is an event, something neatly bounded on either end by dates. What anyone who’s lived through one can tell you is that it’s actually a place. You’re there and then you leave, but places don’t stop existing just because you aren’t looking at them.

“Blessed Virgin,” I whispered, even though I couldn’t even hear myself. “Why must you keep sending me innocent monsters?”

“May we always have the choice to err on the side of mercy,” I said, lifting my wine.

“Something bad happened to both of us, too. We don’t deserve to fall apart either.”