Empire of Shadows (Raiders of the Arcana, #1)

by Jacquelyn Benson

“Just one little arrest,” Ellie offered cheerfully, “which they aren’t even pressing charges for. It’s not as though I was denying half the population of the United Kingdom one of their most basic and essential civil rights, consigning them to a life of virtual slavery thinly disguised as ‘domestic bliss’ and forbidding them from any meaningful or profitable employment.”

“Perhaps one must be arrested in a less civilized locale in order to have a more interesting experience.”

“I swear it,” he echoed. “On the bottle of very good rum I have hidden under the deck boards.” “You want me to trust you based on a bottle of spirits?” Ellie burst out. “It’s a really, really good bottle of rum,” Bates returned gravely.

“What is holding me back,” Ellie shouted as she took a step toward him, “is an entire society built on the implied superiority of men! A society that refuses women any sense of agency or competence! What is holding me back,” she continued as she drove a firm, pointy finger into his sternum, “is a legal and professional system designed to systematically exclude women in order to force them into lives of domestic slavery! I can’t just walk away from whatever isn’t working for me. I don’t get to bounce into any job tacked up onto the postings board. I can’t just give up, secure in the knowledge that there are a thousand other options out there for me. I can’t afford to roll through my life like nothing in it really matters!”