Guardian

Being alive and living aren't the same.

I'd burn the world down if it would make you smile

Amnesia was a soldier's best friend, and luckily, it could be taught. Missing limbs still ache, but missing memories never do.

Then he pulled Liam forward and pressed their lips together. The kiss was no longer than a second, but in that second, any walls between them fell. Liam's body was Syd's body; Syd's mind was Liam's mind. someones eyelashes tickled and they drew apart

Civilization without humanity was just a graveyard

Those who were defiant, like Marie, would defy until they dropped dead. The maudlin would weep and the deal makers would bargain and the jokers would joke, but every last one of them would die.

At the birth of a new world, there will be always pain.

A man with success had interests to protect. A man with nothing was far more dangerous.

He let Liam stand in front of him so he could lean on his bodyguard's shoulder. It was hard to stay standing...

Every revolution believes it can return something that has been lost, but nothing is ever the same. The only thing that edures are people.

The moment my son died my own heartbeat turned against me

He was a real-life soldier playing soldier from his memories of made up soldiers.

They understood what had really held the market together before. Violence. After all, what good was a debt if the creditor couldn't compel it to be paid?

Remaking the world wasn't always a stage show and a cheering crowd. Politics was just warfare by other means. The losers didn't get to hold rallies.

Again, Syd had that feeling, the past as an echo, repeating itself as it faded. The poor had longed for Jubilee to save them from the powerful, and now the one-time patrons longed for the Machine to do the same. Every revolution believes it can return something that had been lost, but nothing is ever the same. The only thing that endures are people. Syd saw that clearly now, and perhaps so too did Marie. You could serve a revolution, an idea that ended up an echo if itself, or you could serve people, with their maddening contradictions. You couldn't serve both. You had to choose.