Recently added

“May I be frank?” Sherrington asked.

Irene sighed. This was always the sign of a fast-approaching insult.

I think the time for blind trust is long over. Now I need answers.

I don’t care about politics or the greater good or universal peace or whatever. I just want to be left in peace with books.

“But don’t make the same mistakes that we have, Irene.” Her mouth quirked in a smile. “Make some new ones.”

It was the sort of overly complex plan dreamed up by armchair manipulators who thought they could play chess with the universe and didn’t realize that the universe ignored rulebooks.

“Life was much easier before I had to worry about everyone else worrying,” Irene muttered.

“It’s called growing up, dear. It comes with staying alive.”

“Nothing lasts,” he said, his voice guttural with age and remembered pain. “Neither knowledge, nor skill, nor family, nor the bond between master and student. In another thousand years I will be gone. And in time you both will pass as well, and this place will be dust. For all that we pride ourselves on our power and our length of years, Prince Kai, ultimately dragons too are as fleeting as fireflies. There was a time when we never existed; there will also come a time when nobody will remember us. War changes to peace. But, ultimately, peace collapses into war and the cycle continues.”

“I’ve told you before, sir, you will be remembered as long as my fathers kingdom lasts.” Shan Yuan spoke with affection, clearly repeating an old reassurance.

“That’s not as reassuring as you might think.”

You must surely know by now, Winters, that a leader’s authority is limited to giving her followers orders that they will actually obey.

Don’t you realize you have a responsibility to other people to look after yourself?

“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.