What Stalks the Deep (Sworn Soldier, #3)

by T. Kingfisher

(Also, my sister was going to have another child and while I think babies are fine in the abstract, my sister has a regrettable belief that if I just hold one long enough, I will come to enjoy it. I will not. I have proven this to my own satisfaction, but apparently not to hers, and America seemed like an excellent alternative. Land of opportunity, they say, which presumably includes the opportunity not to hold a baby.)

One American can really fill a room. I assume it only takes a hundred or so to really fill a country.

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

I patted my horse on the neck. She gazed past me with an air that reminded me of an elderly Gallacian woman I used to know who had twelve children and twenty-seven grandchildren, and thus no longer registered screaming, crying, wailing, gunshots, explosions, or the sounds of breaking crockery.

Even I eventually run out of the need to prove myself to myself.

My only defense is a fundamental belief that dogs are inherently good and Thunder must therefore be good and if he hadn’t liked me, it was probably a failure on my part.)

“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.” “You just added that last bit now,” I said. “Obviously should’ve been there all along.”