The Fall of Babel (The Books of Babel #4)

by Josiah Bancroft

Those who claim to be “ready for anything” are overpacked and invariably unprepared for the one obstacle every adventurer must eventually face—disappointment.

Never was a line untangled by heaves and tugs. An unwanted knot requires a flexible stratagem to undo. One must give a little here to make some progress there. So it is with most of life’s snarls.

Any airman who has ever killed another in battle has learned the unhappy truth: Ships sink; ghosts float.

But the truth was increasingly apparent: They were afraid. They were like the unwell man who delays a visit to the doctor, not because he believes his dawdling will cure him, but because denial is a desperate imitation of hope.

Praise was like chocolate; a little made you euphoric, too much just made you sick.

I have spent so many months building up a cordial and indifferent front. I built a seawall out of a smile. I meant it to protect me, and it did. Too well, I think. Because the more distant you grow from everyone else, the stranger you become to yourself. It’s easier to be formal, yes; there’s a sanctuary in the pleases and thank-yous, a refuge in the customary. But you can’t live inside a smile.”

‘I picked Edith because she’s the sort of person who doesn’t let a hat shape her head.’