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Kindle Notes & Highlights
’Cause ain’t nobody all bad, through and through. Maybe Maynard was a little bad, doing what he did; and maybe those last two guys were a little good.
Her lack of interest might have been interpreted as a lack of caring, but it was only a side effect of permanent exhaustion.
Your future was broken before you were born, and there’s no one left living for you to pin that on except for me.”
Sometimes, everyone is right. Not always and not even usually, but once in a while, everyone is right.”
He crossed the threshold, forcing himself past the line between mere night and someplace darker.
He consoled himself by remembering that she was old, and no one gets to be that old without being smart and strong.
Plans change, junior. Detours happen. This is one of them.”
Life’s hard. Death’s easy.”
Zeke felt absolutely sick, both for watching a man die and for knowing he’d had some part in it, even if he’d only stood by and not known what to do.
I guess we know where Zeke lands on the trolley problem.
We’re in the Smith Tower, at any rate.”
ಠ_ಠ constructed from 1911-1914 … and this novel makes reference to the Civil War as still on-going so … timelines not quite matching up (imagine the Civil War going for 50+ years!?)
He ripped his mask off and sucked in the foulest-tasting air he’d ever inhaled, but it was beautiful because it came without a fight.
Distilling makes for a nasty brew, but it won’t kill you or turn you rotty.”
Nooooooooooo - distilling is not brewing :'(
But she couldn’t imagine swilling the urine-yellow beverage except under the most dire of circumstances.
This implies that they have access to v. pale malts and/or adjuncts … and tbh such a pale beer just wasn't that common yet!
Even at a distance, it had a scent that would peel paint.
Which would imply a v. strong ethanol note so … a strong beer? (MAYBE) an uncontrolled fermentation with crazy fusels (SEEMS LIKELY but also implies the previous) or it *is* distilled -- in which case (1) "oh OK then" and (2) NOT BEER
“He does good work, but he does bad things with his good work.
No one interrupted her with helpful information.
Boys disobey their parents with such great regularity that it’s barely worth a comment; and if yours is talented enough to rebel in such grand fashion, then you ought to consider it a point of pride that he’s such a sharp lad.”
Someone behind Briar gave her back a friendly pat. It startled her, but there was nothing salacious about the gesture so she didn’t flinch away from it.
This is at least the second reference to friendly physical affection with a reaction like that from Briar — so much in this story about being untouched, unloved — closed off (the wall, the masks)
This was a man accustomed to being obeyed, and Zeke was not a boy accustomed to obeying.
The message was clear: He was free to leave if he could figure out how, and if he wanted to.
“Late? No, it only looks late. It’s just the time of year, and the shadow from the walls, and the thickness of the Blight. It makes you feel like the sun never comes up good, so it’s hard to tell when it’s actually going down.”
They did not understand that he’d only meant to begin an industry here, one apart from the filthy, violent, bloody sport of logging.
He tried to take the philosophical view that the other man couldn’t use it anymore, so there was nothing wrong with taking it, and that made sense. But it felt no less disgusting when he smudged his thumb along the inside of the glass and felt the dampness of someone else’s dying breath.
“Not as rich as he’d like to be. They never are, are they, Miss Wilkes?
The smell inside her mask was an elixir of fear and hope, and rubber and glass and coal.
Maybe not all of them deserved better. But some of them.
Maybe I’m a killer, and you’re a runaway. Maybe we deserve this city, and these people, and maybe we can make something good of it.
