Extraits

Anything can be taken from you, at any moment. Even the past isn’t guaranteed. You can lose that too, slowly, like water eating away at stone.

"(…) But I think magic is just the truth that people believe. For most people, that truth is whatever helps them sleep at night, whatever makes their lives easier. It's different from objective truth."

I was eighteen. That meant I was a woman, in some people’s eyes. well — I was a woman when it was convenient to blame me, and a girl when they wanted to use me.

No man escapes his primal fault,

That silent seep of black decay.

Decay is one thing, danger another, I said—laughingly.

But the wise man laughed right back at me, and said—

The sea is a thing no sword can slay.

Everyone changes their mind sometimes, as they should, or else they're just, I don't know, stubborn and ignorant.

Moving water is healthy; stagnant water is sickly. Tainted.

When did Llyrians begin to see love as strictly dichotomic, rather than of a vast and multitudinous quality? Why was this dichotomy characterized by submission versus dominance? I put forth the argument that this doctrinal transformation is tied to the evolving role of women in Lyrian society, the fear of female advancement, particularly in the decades immediately following the Drowning.

Lying was a form of survival, a way out of whatever trap had been set. Some animals chewed off their own limbs to escape. Effy just tucked away truth after truth, until even she wasn't sure if there was a real person left at all, under all those desperate, urgent lies.

"I don't like lying." Preston folded his arms over his chest. "I know it's not realistic, but the world would be a better place if everyone just told the truth."

"(…) I'm not happy to be the most interesting thing in Saltney, but regrettably I can assure you that that is the case."

"I don't know about that." Effy thought of the shepherd, the stones in her pocket. She decided not to mention any of that.

Instead she said, "Not to wound your ego, but I saw some very interesting sheep dung on my way over here."