Middlegame (Alchemical Journeys, #1)

by Seanan McGuire

Numbers are simple, obedient things, as long as you understand the rules they live by. Words are trickier. They twist and bite and require too much attention.

So much of her plan depends on this piece being perfect. But what is perfection, really, if not the act of winning?

The numbers don’t need him to give them meaning the way the words do. Words don’t mean anything without someone to understand them. Numbers just are.

Words can be whispered bullet-quick when no one’s looking, and words don’t leave blood or bruises behind. Words disappear without a trace. That’s what makes them so powerful. That’s what makes them so important. That’s what makes them hurt so much.

Time is a funny thing; it doesn’t forgive the things we don’t see.

Heredity is not only in blood. It is in the sympathetic vibration of the universe, in the places where atom becomes alchemy.

Dodger isn’t supposed to be scared. She’s supposed to be the brave one. It’s the compensation for her also being the breakable one.

She’s a predator in her own way, capable of absolute stillness when she thinks she needs it, capable of equally absolute momentum.

Time is like skin: it can scar if you cut it enough times.

You can’t skip to the end of the story just because you’re tired of being in the middle.