Lair of Dreams (The Diviners, #2)

by Libba Bray

Ordinary people were capable of extraordinary bravery. That was the only magic Sam knew or trusted.

They called this science. They called it fact. They called it patriotism.

Even hitler called it too much

two boys had been playing near a storm drain when one was suddenly swept away. Police searched the area below the grate, shining flashlights in sewer lines. They found nothing except for the poor boy’s baseball and one of his shoes. But the surviving child insisted that it wasn’t the water to blame, for he’d seen an unearthly pale hand reach up from below and yank his friend down by his ankle, quick as a rabbit snatched by the strong jaws of a trap.

It? Stephen King? Is that you?

America had invented itself. It continued to invent itself as it went along. Sometimes its virtues made it the envy of the world. Sometimes it betrayed the very heart of its ideals.

America is a contradiction

History was haunted by the ghosts of buried crimes, which required periodic exorcisms of truth. Actions had consequences.

“Subject number twenty-seven, New Orleans.

Henry?

Zenith, Ohio,

This is important

“Diviners are truth-tellers. But people rarely want the truth. We say that we want it when, really, we like being lied to. We prefer the ether of hope.”

King of Crows, the man in the stovepipe hat?

sort of southern manners that meant never really saying what you thought. He’d

As we still are raised

“Just because I believe in science doesn’t mean I ignore superstition. Sometimes there’s a basis for those superstitions.

She’s a bit… odd.” “You mean crazy,” Ling said. “I’d say eccentric.” “That’s a nice way of saying crazy.”

With the sun behind him, he glowed.

First Louise and now James

radium-painted rain.

Nice imagery

We, the dreamers, built this nation.” “The Indians and the slaves might disagree,”

“Looking for truth makes a man hafta look at himself along the way.”

All that is hidden eventually reveals itself, no matter how fervently we fight to keep it locked away.”

one hundred forty-four.

“I saw things in that war that a man shouldn’t ever have to see. Things that make you forget we’re human and not just a bunch of beasts crawling out of the sludge somewhere. And the damnedest part of it all is, I couldn’t for the life of me remember what we were fighting for in the first place. After a while, fighting just got to be habit.”

“She’s connected to him,” Miss Addie muttered. “They all are. I know it.” “Now, Addie…” “Connected to whom, ma’am?” Henry asked. Addie looked at Henry with wide eyes. “The man in the hat. The King of Crows.”