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“I know…” His voice cracks. “I know they’re…” “You know they’re what? Murderous? Violent?” “Monsters,” he supplies. “I know they’re monsters. But a man can love a monster.”
“Don’t fear pain, Dymek,” he said. “Fear … losing your purpose, losing your family, losing yourself. Those things are worse than pain.”
“I’m glad our schedules overlapped. I’m only here for a couple days. Have you tried a hot dog yet? I’m told I need to surrender to the full cadre of toppings, but I’m suspicious of the neon-green relish.”
“You Eastern Europeans always have this aura of profound gloom, you know that?” John waves at Dymitr’s face. “Or maybe Americans are just obnoxiously chipper. That world-famous optimism, right? Not so much to be optimistic about these days, of course—”
“The world is the same age no matter where you go,” Dymitr replies. “Just because it’s new to you doesn’t mean it’s new.”
“I’m not jealous because I’m not entitled to you,” Dymitr says. It should be reassuring, maybe, or noble, but to Niko it only seems sad. Sometimes anger is entitled and jealous, but sometimes it rises up to demand what you feel you deserve. And Dymitr feels he deserves nothing and no one.
“The world always changes,” the wiła says. “For now, it changes to exclude us. Someday it may change to suit us once more. But not yet.” She looks at the fountain again. “You’ve come to ask me for something, but I only help warriors, and most zmoras I have met can’t claim to be warriors. Are you an exception?”
Instead, she makes a face. “The entire array of American snack foods is in front of you, and you’re on a quest for Baked Lay’s? They taste like almost nothing.” “No, they taste both salty and bland,” he says. “All the comfort of a saltine cracker but with the satisfying snap of a chip.” “Are the Lay’s people paying you to say this? Blink twice if you’re being blackmailed.”
She had a way of making suffering feel almost like heroism.
Niko meets Ala’s eyes, as if she can offer him some guidance—but he knows there’s none to be had. They’re breaking new ground here. A real fucked-up Romeo and Juliet scenario, only the Capulets didn’t hunt down and brutally murder every single Montague they could get their hands on.
But they don’t love him, Niko thinks. Because if love doesn’t allow change, then what the fuck is that love worth?
