More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
By Magdalene’s reckoning, this island has a thousand clawed hands, and they’re all reaching for her child.
There are no prayers here, no thoughts of an afterlife. The reward for a good life is the living of it.
He’s been standing still for almost four minutes—an eternity for a young boy.
Love is simply a matter of what people need and what they lack. It’s two broken things fitting together for a time.
“We had different gods or different skin, or the fight had been going on so long we’d forgotten how to stop it. Somebody had something we needed, or we thought they were planning to hurt us.
Such are the rules of the village, he thinks. Every one of them was created to benefit those who’d never need to follow them.
Naturally, the elders receive the most tributes, even though they contribute the least to village life. It’s always bothered Emory, but nobody else seems to mind.
“Hold on to that feeling,” I say. “It will be easy to hate them, but both Thea and Hephaestus have suffered far more than you can ever imagine. Whatever they are today, it wasn’t their choice, and they didn’t deserve it.”
“Abi could teach us. Even if she couldn’t, I’d not accept their control as the price of our existence.”
“She was afraid,” says Seth softly. “Powerful people usually are,” replies Thea. “They have the most to lose.”
“You can’t just keep killing people in the hopes of saving them,” she says. “You have to find another way.”
For the first time in years, the future doesn’t seem so ominous, because she feels like the most dangerous thing in it.
