The Queer Principles of Kit Webb

by Cat Sebastian

“I used to think that revenge was about defending one’s honor, but it turns out that honor is just spite dressed up for Sunday.”

“what I had thought were principles were merely manners, and they’re utterly insufficient for my present circumstances. I keep running into information that makes me have to sort of reorganize everything in my brain. You know when you get a new book, you have to slide everything on your shelf over to accommodate it?”

He had been taught to keep people at arm’s length, and just to be on the safe side he typically kept them even further.

Percy realized he had had it all wrong when he told Kit that honor is just spite dressed up; spite was honor when it was the only weapon you had against someone more powerful.

Percy was somehow still young or naive enough to think that there was any difference between being strong and acting strong. And again, Kit found himself wanting to be there when Percy figured it out, when he learned what he was worth.

But when he touched Percy, the idea that he was risking his neck made him as furious as it did when he thought about places like Cheveril existing while regular people went hungry. Any law against this was the sort of rule Kit wanted to break on principle alone.

The world was filled with people who felt all kinds of things and couldn’t manage to shape those feelings into something that would last.

“I’d be delighted to turn traitor to my class,” Percy said easily. “Honestly, I’ve been wondering when you’d ask.”