Deeplight

by Frances Hardinge

Fear is an essence, as real as oil or blood.

Telling the truth was dangerous, though. You could never un-tell it, any more than you could un-break an egg.

You wore people out like shoes. You didn’t mean to, but you did. This is what it felt like when the sole started getting thin.

We are all squeezed into new shapes by the people around us. If we are paying attention, though, we always have some say in how we are altered. The priesthood corroded

Human fear has a terrible power. It changes everything, distorts everything, maddens everything. Fear is the dark womb where monsters are born and thrive.

Talking to her was like accepting an invitation to someone else’s house, only to find that the walls are made of teeth and all the doors lead to the moon.

Without him even noticing it, other people’s injuries had become his problem. They called to him like an itch or niggling pain.

“You must not love them,” said Quest gently. “It is easy to love power, because power tells you it is majesty and beauty and greatness. But the gods were monsters. Do not even love their memory.

Maybe you couldn’t ever owe somebody your life, not really. You couldn’t let anyone else decide what you did with it. You had to live it yourself, as truly as you could.