What Stalks the Deep (Sworn Soldier, #3)

by T. Kingfisher

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.”

He was, above all, interested in things. He wanted to know why things worked, but unlike some scientific minds, he didn’t lose interest once he knew. The world was an endless source of fascination and wonder. On our way back from town, he whipped out a magnifying lens to show me what he called a “wheel bug”—a bizarre insect with a thick body and tiny head, and a strange ridge on its back. “Look at him!” Ingold said, clearly delighted.

“Something wrong, girl?” I leaned over to look at her. She came out of her hiding spot, barked almost soundlessly at me, then retreated. (In Dog, this means, Yes, something is wrong, and you should be hiding. If she’d meant Something is wrong and you need to fix it, the bark would have been much louder.)

“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.”