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The act of vivimancy, he said, could only be purified through intentions of selflessness.
“But I don’t think it’s possible to exceed what you’ve done to yourself.”
contributions of a female womb—the source of all humanity’s flaws.
Helena had forgotten how easy it was to exist when her mind and body couldn’t betray her.
Unsolvable puzzles seemed fated to be her primary occupation.
“Is there really a difference between having someone die for you and killing them?”
“This is a story with only one ending.
It was beautiful, and it felt like a betrayal.
“Whether you win a battle or lose it, all I see is the cost.”
“Who better to rule the ashes than the family whose steel can rebuild this city?”
wasn’t aware that immunity to mind-reading was something you expected from a war prize.”
you think that ruining your life is the worst thing I’ve ever done?”
like a marionette unaware of its strings.
She had not known it was a hunger. Or that she was starving.
“You made me feel like the parts of me that aren’t useful still deserve to exist. Like I’m not just all the things I can do.”
They were the inverse and counter to each other.
“Everyone wanted a lot for me, and I’m not sure I ever knew what I wanted.”
People were often like this in the hospital; their failures poured out of them.
You’re fighting someone whose only objection to genocide is the waste of potential resources.
“Yes. Funny how often people in power hate politics, as if what they really want is to do as they please and be praised for it, and if they aren’t, then it’s all beneath them. Considering how much they despised it, they certainly were unwilling to part with it. Only handed the minutiae of governance over to those of faith, let the Falcons and Kestrels and Shrikes manage all that tedium. The Institute was founded on the idea of pursuing the heights of alchemy, but that began to crumble the moment the science began contradicting the Faith. You should have seen the crisis when new metals were
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Women were always defined by the lowliest thing they could be called.
“You don’t get to lie to me and then get angry when I make the mistake of believing you,”
Helena was not a planet or any celestial thing. She was just a human bound tight to the present, to the brevity of existence, and she could feel time running out.
miracles he believed in were mere sleights of hand, bought and paid for with betrayal.
He was always cruellest when he was vulnerable.
someone must do whatever it takes to stop the rot.
Perhaps, looking at her as his successor, he did find her tragic.
How nice it must be, to be a god.
right now all I feel is a new set of manacles.”
I can exact dual revenge.
By making privileges always at the expense of others, the prisoners forget who has made those rules.
You’ve always poured your all into the present moment, as if that’s all you expect to have.”
What’s one more line for the history books?”
someday I am going to love him in a moment that isn’t stolen.
“This whole war was just two brothers fighting over who gets to play god?” Kaine gave a disbelieving, bitter laugh. “You think you’re picking a side, and you’re just on the opposite end of the same fucking coin.”
He could not occupy the impossible in-between where she wanted him because there was no distance large enough to erase what had happened that still left him within her reach.
“We’ll go out together, won’t we, old girl? Bennet’s last two monsters.”
You shouldn’t have to spend the rest of your life trapped by all the promises that people forced you to make.”
but if you choose me, and I choose you, I think we’re strong enough to make it.”
wanted the tragedy of the war confronted, not buried, so that it could not happen again.
