All the Birds in the Sky

by Charlie Jane Anders

“I think that the most basic thing of ethics is being aware of how your actions affect others, and having an awareness of what they want and how they feel. And that’s always going to depend on who you’re dealing with.”

That there was no such thing as the way things were “supposed” to be. “And maybe that’s what you have, right here on Earth: a nonhuman perspective on reality. So yeah, I do get it.”

Magic was always bound to claim her in the end, in retrospect, but love was the most susceptible to random failure of all human enterprises.

“They witnessed the Industrial Revolution,” Ernesto said. “They saw the sky turn black. The dark Satanic mills, the great factories. The Healers feared the world would be choked to death, so they set out to break all the machines. The Tricksters opposed them, because they believed none of us had the right to impose our will on everyone else. Their conflict almost destroyed everything.”

“After Hortense Walker made a peace between them, they reached a compromise. That is where our rule of Aggrandizement comes from, that none of us will try to shape the world too much.