What Stalks the Deep (Sworn Soldier, #3)

by T. Kingfisher

Although Denton had never struck me as a formalwear type. Someone who would help you finish off a fungal abomination that had taken over your childhood friend, yes. Someone who wore a tuxedo with tails to dinner, not so much.)

There was something desperately frightening about seeing a light underground where no light should be.

“That is horrifying and I want to go home,” I said, although I pronounced it, “Ah. I see.”

(It is possible that I believe in ghosts less now than I did before, because if I admit that they are real, I will have to admit that what happened to me was also real and that I killed a lost, starving ghost in a dream of a war that never ends.)

Unlike Thunder, this dog was delighted to sniff me, and then to try to convince me that it had never been petted in its life. I rubbed its ears, and it leaned against my legs and sighed. “Rough night for you too, huh?” I asked. “Your humans running around and yelling and getting hurt.” The dog sighed again, more deeply.

“It’s complicated, Fragment. Sometimes when people hurt for a long time, they start to think that hurting is part of who they are. And then anything that helps the hurt, even healing, feels like it’s trying to strip part of them away.”

And now we were talking about feelings. I would almost rather he had poured the burning oil on me.

“Rules of life,” Angus said. “Be true to your friends, don’t cheat at cards, don’t piss on the less fortunate, and don’t steal other people’s skeletons.”