The Huntress

The dead lie beyond any struggle, so we living must struggle for them. We must remember, because there are other wheels that turn besides the wheel of justice. Time is a wheel, vast and indifferent, and when time rolls on and men forget, we face the risk of circling back. We slouch yawning to a new horizon and find ourselves gazing at old hatreds seeded and watered by forgetfulness and flowering into new wars. New massacres. New monsters like die Jägerin. Let this wheel stop. Let us not forget this time. Let us remember.

Some men ogle, some men look. The first makes us bristle, and the second makes us melt, and men are at an utter loss knowing the difference. But we do, and we know it at once.

Building a generation is like building a wall—one good well-made brick at a time, one good well-made child at a time. Enough good bricks, you have a good wall. Enough good children, you have a generation that won’t start a world-enveloping war.

Moments like this should have been glorious, and they never were. The monsters always looked so ordinary and pathetic, in the flesh.

Is a Russian thing. Sit around, drink too much, talk about death.” She pushed her empty plate away. “It makes us cheerful

We’re standing in the ashes of a war like no other—if we don’t try harder to see the shades of gray involved, we’ll find ourselves in the thick of a new one.

If part of that heart was always out of reach, that seemed entirely fair to Ian. You did not get a whole heart when you pinned yours to a splendid, battered, high-flying hawk like a nightwhich. Nina’s soul would always, in some deep place, yearn to be flying under a bomber’s moon with her dark-eyed Moscow rose. 99%

[G]rief was beginning to be overlaid by the first layer of skin and time. Jordan supposed that layer would get thicker and thicker, and in a way she was sorry. Grief cut, but it also made you remember.

I am only saying that I will find you mad wolves to hunt," Ian told his wife, "and that I will never break your heart." If part of that heart was always out of reach, that seemed entirely fair to Ian. You did not get a whole heart when you pinned yours to a splendid, battered, high-flying hawk like a Night Witch. Nina's soul would always in some deep place yearn to be soaring under a bomber's moon with her dark-eyed Moscow rose, and that was fine. Ian thought there was a chance, despite her prickles, that a bit of that remaining heart might thaw enough for him.

But for all their fuss about give me your huddled masses, Yanks don’t really like refugees,

Because we can keep on. Others, they try keeping on, they just...” she mimed an explosion. “It’s too much for them. They come to pieces. Not us. Hunters, they are different. We can’t stop. Not for bad sleep or parachute dreams or people who say we should want peace and babies instead. It’s a world full of mad wolves, and we hunt them til we die.” 61%

Maybe,” Nina had yawned. Who cares? It was war. Day was night. Life was death. Sorrow was joy. Who cared about anything but the now? (39%)

Jordan considered. “He knows how to look. Really look, when a woman is talking.” “Ah.” Her stepmother sighed. “Some men ogle, some men look. The first makes us bristle, and the second makes us melt, and men are at an utter loss knowing the difference. But we do, and we know it at once.

Maybe it is all rotten, but if the good ones leave, who's there to make it better after the war? I know why you have to leave, Ninochka. It's leave or nothing. But I can't give up my homeland and my oath for love. That's the kind of thing that makes men say little princesses have no place at the front.

So maybe falling for Yelena wasn’t hard to understand, after all. She was fine and fierce, keen and courageous, the best flier in the regiment. With a roll call of qualities like that, Nina would have lost her head over Yelena whether she was woman, man, or plant. To Nina it was exactly that simple and not worthy of any further thought,

[Ruth]'d had bad nightmares in the fall, something about a woman hiding in her closet at night to steal her away, and Jordan had fussed very unnecessarily. Nina had taken her razor, gone into the closet and banged around uttering some Baba Yaga screeches, nicked the pad of her finger so there would be blood on the razor, then walked out holding it up for Ruth's inspection, announcing, "Is dead now." Nightmares had been better ever since.

Time is a wheel, vast and indifferent, and when time rolls on and men forget, we face the risk of circling back.

It was the first thing I noticed about him. He could admire a lady as though he were admiring a beautiful porcelain vase, without making her feel he was affixing a price tag.

I’m done loving sweet-souled long lashed idealists who dream of flight.... She would find some clear eyed hunter with a heart like a diamond.

Bloody hell, woman, the mouth on you. (43%)

A nightmare was a needle plunging through the net of human memory; it slipped past one strand and caught up another on its point, stitching up dark dreams out of the unlikeliest recollections.

Nina took the air, feeling her arms disappear into the wings, her blood into the fuel line.

He never is coming off the leash,” Ian said evenly. “Because I happen to believe that principle should be stronger than the need for vengeance.

What if the woman who killed your brother and nearly killed your wife lies on the other side of beating the shit out of a witness?

There are more war criminals out there than we will ever be able to find. If I have to let go of the ones that won’t get found unless we turn into torturers, I’m at ease with that decision.

Cameras didn't lie, but they could certainly mislead.

The anticipation was so sweet it cut the mouth, like winter-cold water from the icy shore of the Old Man.

net of human memory; it slipped past one strand and caught up another on its point, stitching up dark dreams out of the unlikeliest recollections.

Is it just the war, turning our heads inside out?