The Traitor Baru Cormorant (The Masquerade, #1)

by Seth Dickinson

Certainly, symbols are power—you wear one wherever you go, that purse you carry. And you wear others when you decide how to dress yourself, how to look at men and women, how to carry your body and direct your gaze. And all these symbols can raise people to labor or war.”

“Every moment is an edict spoken by its past. The past is the real tyranny.”