M. K. Hobson

Emily already knew there was going to be hell to pay, and she supposed there was no use allowing it to accrue interest.

Emily pounded on the door, assuming it would do no good, but finding the act of pounding very satisfying indeed.

“It is a great weakness of credomancers, Miss Edwards. They often believe their own press.”

”You’re a credomancer, too,” Emily said.

“I’m also a woman. Failure, struggle, and doubt are my constant companions. They are not always pleasant, but they inoculate me against overconfidence. As such, I would not trade them for all the arrogant bravado in the world.”

She was painfully aware that doing one’s best was never assurance that it wasn’t the wrong choice anyway.

The obsessive rules of etiquette struck Emily as mean-spirited, like the old trick of tying someone’s shoelaces under the table. It was only fun if you liked watching people fall down.

Nothing is ever what you want it to be. The harder you grab for it, the more deeply it cuts. And it mocks you for being foolish enough to reach for it at all. You come to fear touching anything at all, because you know that if you do, it will become terrible.

But it was impossible to remain so long in the company of a female, even a divine one, without suffering some form of disillusionment.

The shortness of the woman’s replies indicated that Emily was asking questions Miss Jesczenka didn’t particularly want to answer, but those were usually the questions that most needed to be asked.

In his idle hours, Heusler sometimes amused himself by trying to conceive of a crime a mortal man could commit that was more monstrous than making a goddess fall in love with him. He had never succeeded.

I don’t think that’s the answer he was looking for. It’s not the answer I was looking for. But maybe it’s the right one.

“Credomancy may seek to exploit the human desire for a tidy narrative where an unblemished romantic hero vanquishes all obstacles, but such ideals have very little to do with reality. Reality requires pragmatism and compromise. Men fail. Women fail. There are no heroes, only human beings who somehow find the strength to behave heroically, no matter how many times they have been unable to do so in the past. If you understand that, Miss Edwards—if you truly and deeply understand that, then you will understand the most powerful thing anyone with a heart can understand.”

“And what’s that?” Emily said softly.

“That love is not enough. But it’s a start.”

There is a difference between not understanding and being willfully obtuse.