Genevieve Cogman

“Are there other Librarian ghosts here?” she asked.

“Ghosts? Yes, I suppose that’s the best word for it. Collections of memories, maybe. We are all the sum of our memories, after all.”

First things first. Get the facts, then decide what to do next. And hope that there is a next.

The problem with paranoia was that if you let it rule all your decisions, then you would miss some perfectly good opportunities.

Blind faith is just another word for slavery.

Sometimes the obvious answer is the true answer.

Indigo was precisely the sort of person who would declare that a just revolution was worth a million deaths. As long as she wasn’t one of them, of course.

They blew up a library. A library, Kai. They haven’t just offended me, they have attacked and insulted every single citizen of this place who used that library, who contributed to it, who even so much as might have used it someday in the future.

“There is no truth to peace,” she said. “Peace is at best a brief interlude between hostilities. The treaties which might be signed here are no more than lies. The field of battle is more honest.”

All that fear, all that paranoia, and all of it based on a lie simply to keep convenient control of this world. Maybe there were no universal standards of morality—but this was still just plain wrong.

She’d thought the situation couldn’t get much worse. She’d been wrong. The situation could always get worse.

My dear Irene, there are two sorts of collectors. One is satisfied by simply owning the treasured item and doesn’t care whether or not the rest of the world knows. But the other sort—they absolutely have to brag about their possessions. For them, half the pleasure comes from the thought of acquaintances gnawing their guts out with envy. Even if it increases the risk of theft, they can’t help themselves.

You can’t trust people in power, dearie. They’ll say whatever they want, all the witnesses will be paid to agree, and then you’re behind bars till the end of your days. Or worse.