Empire in Black and Gold (Shadows of the Apt, #1)

by Adrian Tchaikovsky

“What you hear now is men braving themselves for a fight. When it starts, they will be quiet, just for a moment. They will brace themselves. Then it will be a different kind of noise.”

She had tried her best with fashion, but it wanted little to do with her.

It was a shame, then, that the lad was a poor half-breed and an orphan. If he had come with a finer provenance the word his masters would have used of him was “great.”

He had all the written rules on his side, and all the unwritten ones working against him.

Totho, who possessed little and had done better than he should, had proved rather more than Piraeus, who possessed a lot and had done worse than he might.

There were things that come to roost in the mind that should never be let out.

“It's been a quiet day so far. I don't want a body spoiling it for me. Of course, if first blood is last blood, well, what can you do?”