“But then, that was the problem with pretty toy stitches. When real life got hold of them, they always tore out.”

“Watch your mouth,” Mahlia said, “or I’ll stitch your guts shut.”

“Killing isn't free. It takes something out of you every time you do it. You get their life; they get a piece of your soul. It's always a trade.”

“If I was strategic, I would have figured out how to get out of this place. Would have seen everything falling apart and got out while there were still ships to sail.”

“The Drowned Cities hadn’t always been broken. People broke it. First they called people traitors and said they didn’t belong. Said these people were good and those people were evil, and it kept going, because people always responded, and pretty soon the place was a roaring hell because no one took responsibility for what they did, and how it would drive others to respond.”

“Mahlia just waited. She was good at that. When you were a castoff, it didn’t do any good trying to talk to people, but sometimes, if you just kind of waited them out, people would get uncomfortable and feel like they had to do something.”

“It’s still a load. If there was balance, the soldier boys would all be dead, and we’d be sitting pretty in the middle of the Drowned Cities, shipping marble and steel and copper and getting paid Red Chinese for every kilo. We’d be rich and they’d be dead, if there was such a thing as the Scavenge God, or his scales. And that goes double for the Deepwater priests. They’re all full of it. Nothing balances out.”