The Aeronaut's Windlass (The Cinder Spires, #1)

by Jim Butcher

Gwen stared down at the glass without really seeing it. “It’s just that . . . I was among these things. I saw these things. And now . . .” “Now you’re on the way back to be among people who didn’t,” Grimm said quietly.

“How are you going to talk to someone who has no idea?” Grimm said, nodding. “How can you explain something you can’t find words for? How can you get someone else to understand something for which they have no frame of reference?”

“No one should have to go through that. Why fight, if not to protect others?”

“The moment you can see the mistmaw without feeling horrible, you aren’t a soldier anymore, Miss Lancaster. You’re . . . something of a monster, perhaps.”

“After the way I left, I suddenly find myself wanting very much to go home. But . . . it won’t be the same when I get back. Will it?” “It will be the same,” Grimm said. “You’re the one who has changed.”