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368 pages, Paperback
First published July 2, 2019
“Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.”—Attributed to Abraham Lincoln
“You didn’t hit women, not unless they were armed and they were trying to kill you. You didn’t hit whores, and you most definitely didn’t hit your own fucking wife. Anyone who needed that explained to him wasn’t someone I knew how to talk to in a civil fashion. Vengeance is mine, sayeth Our Lady, and I am Her priest.”
“Each of us here, man or woman, is a Pious man. That’s a bond between us, a bond either of blood or of trust and comradeship forged in the fires of war. That’s not a thing to be taken lightly. We’re family, and we’re comrades, and we stand by each other until the very last breath. That’s what it means, to be a Pious an. That’s how this fucking works. Does anyone disagree on that?”
“Everyone has a lever that moves them, and everyone has their weakness too. If you can’t find the lever to move someone, then you find the weakness, and you take hold of it, and you squeeze until they break.”
"Was there a raid?" she asked once I had chased the footman and her maid out of the room and closed the door behind them.
"An assassination attempt," I said. "A magician, posing as a dockside cunning woman. A Skanian, I can only assume."
"What happened?"
I shrugged. "She nearly killed me, then Billy killed her," I said. "Then I sent Fat Luka to bring me the man who introduced us to her, and I killed him. It’s been a good day for killing."
"With your own hands?"
"Yes, Alisa, with my own hands," I snapped at her. "They attacked me in my place of business. I’m a businessman and I’m a fucking soldier, and I will not have it!"
This was how society folk fought their battles, I had come to realise: not with blades but with insults disguised as courtesy. It was a whole different world to mine, I knew that much.