The Strength of the Few (Hierarchy, #2)

by James Islington

The illusion of power too often becomes power, my father used to say.

Easier to despise than understand. Easier to mock than empathise.

WILL, WE WERE TAUGHT OVER and over at the academy, is a gift. Not just in the sense that it is something good and wondrous, but that it is literally a gift: it can only ever be given, never taken. Another of the great lies of the Hierarchy. Possibly their greatest.

COMPETITIVENESS, YSABEL ONCE QUOTED PRIMLY as I celebrated beating her at Foundation, is insecurity in action. To which my smiling father immediately responded that a complete lack of it shows only apathy or arrogance.

A MAN WHO IS CHASED may be free. A man who chases never is.

She explained through choking sobs that without grief, love would be meaningless. Because it is impossible to truly love something that cannot be lost.