A Desolation Called Peace (Teixcalaan, #2)

by Arkady Martine

To ravage, to slaughter, to usurp under false titles—this they name empire; and where they make a desert, they call it peace. —Tacitus (quoting Calgacus), Agricola 30

<A man pretends,> Yskandr murmured. <A barbarian pretends that civilization might grow in the small hours of the night, between two people.>

Sob

It turned out that there was a place you went after you were scared. A big, cold, bright place inside your head. Eight Antidote thought this was a good thing to have discovered.

I would die for Eight Antidote

her escort spoke it viciously well, like the language was a knife she’d learned to handle carefully.)

She brushed Mahit’s wrist with warm fingertips as she passed by, and Mahit followed her easily, thinking of flowers that turned toward sunlight, and less pleasant tropisms—gravity wells, the attraction of insects to rot.

Six Rainfall is good at protocol adherence, except for his tendency to play music when he’s working.

This was TERRIFYING and you'll just have to read the book to know why

Eight Antidote was very sure he was being manipulated, over more than six jumpgates and five and a half hours of time—but it was so strange and refreshing to be manipulated by being earnestly told the truth. He needed to learn that one.