“You couldn’t live close to war and not have it grab you eventually.”

“When you were alone in the rising ocean, you grabbed whatever raft passed by.”

“You can’t know its mind, and you can’t control it. This creature is nothing but war incarnate. If you traffic with it, you bring war into your house, and violence down upon yourself.”

“I never turned children to war," Tool said."Only because you fought on the side of wealth,”

“Maggot twitch, some people called it. If you’d seen much of the war, you had it. Some more. Some less. But everybody had it.”

“You call me castoff,” Mahlia said, “Chinese throwaway, whatever.” Amaya was trying to look away, but Mahlia had her pinned, kept her eye to eye. “My old man might have been peacekeeper, but my mom was pure Drowned Cities. You want to war like that, I’m all in.” Mahlia lifted the scarred stump of her right hand, shoved it up in Amaya’s face. “Maybe I cut you the way the Army of God cut me. See how you do with just a lucky left. How’d you like that?”

“They were hunters. But now, as night closed in on them, and the swamp became black and hot and close, they were becoming prey.”