“Tool wondered if the girl was going mad. It happened to people. Sometimes they saw too much and their minds went away. They lost the will to survive. They curled up and surrendered to madness.”

“Tool glanced over his shoulder, looking to see if the girl might have changed her mind, but she was gone. Swallowed up by the land. The Drowned Cities ate its children.”

“The idea made Mahlia’s chest tighten. It was her own fantasy, the secret one she sometimes curled up to when she went to bed, knowing that it was stupid, but still wanting it, wanting it to somehow all make sense.”

“A rush of primal satisfaction flooded Tool as his opponent surrendered to death. Blackness swamped Tool’s vision, and he let go. He had conquered. Even as he died, he conquered.”

“Some things, it was better not to think about. It just made you mad and angry.”

“When people fight for ideals, no price is too high, and no fight can be surrendered. They aren't fighting for money, or power, or control. Not really. They're fighting to destroy their enemies.”

“Her father would return from China. He’d come back with all his soldiers. He’d pick her up in his strong arms and say that he’d never meant to leave, that he hadn’t meant to sail away and leave her and her mother alone in the canals of the Drowned Cities as the Army of God and the UPF and the Freedom Militia came down like a hammer on every single person who’d ever trafficked with the peacekeepers. A stupid little dream for a stupid little war maggot. Mahlia hated herself for dreaming it. But sometimes she curled in on herself and held the stump of her right hand to her chest and pretended that none of it had happened. That her father was still here, and she still had a hand, and everything was going to get better.”