The Bird King

by G. Willow Wilson

Not everybody has to be friendly in order to be good.”

“Creo que he oido algo.”

“Yes, you were taught to waste your anger. It’s convenient for girls to be angry about nothing. Girls who are angry about something are dangerous.

“No one can choose who God loves, or change who God loves,” said Vikram. “Not even the Inquisition.”

Happiness, she decided, came only in pauses, neither regularly nor predictably.

Plenty of ordinary, peaceful men and women think someone like me ought to be murdered, even if they’d never dream of doing it themselves. Get enough of them together and the Inquisition will spring into existence all by itself, as if called from the very air.”

This, us, each other. It matters that we lived.”