Every innovation – technological, sociological, or otherwise – begins as a crusade, organises itself into a practical business, and then, over time, degrades into common exploitation. This is simply the life cycle of how human ingenuity manifests in the material world.

‘Or they could scrive a soldier’s mind,’ said Gregor. ‘Make them fearless. Make it so they don’t value their own lives. Make them do despicable things, and then forget they’d ever done them. Or make them bigger, stronger, faster than all other soldiers . . .’

‘You’ll soon learn to do many things, Sancia – and you’ll have to learn to do many things. Because war is coming. It’s already found you and the rest of this city. And when you decide how to respond, remember – the first few steps of your path will decide the rest of it.’ ‘What do you mean?’ ‘Think of the plantations, of slavery. It was to be a

Because a lexicon was essentially a giant violation of reality – that was why it was so unpleasant to be close to one. The consequences of a lexicon going haywire were too horrific to contemplate. And this was the chief reason that the city of Tevanne, with all of its power, corruption, and fractious merchant houses, had yet to experience much

Sancia had no training in scriving, but the way scrived carriages worked was common knowledge in Tevanne: the commands written upon the wheels convinced them that they were on an incline, and so the wheels, absolutely believing this, would feel obliged to roll downhill – even if there was actually no hill at all, and the carriage was actually just

Sancia did not truly understand her talents. She did not know how they worked, what their limits were, or even if they were all that dependable. She just knew what they did, and how they could help her. When she touched an object with her bare skin, she understood it. She understood its nature, its makeup, its shape. If it had been somewhere or

Even though she was stunned and terrified, she couldn’t help but think: They use water – clean water – as decoration? Clean water was impossibly rare in the Commons, and most people drank weak cane wine instead. To just have it bubbling away in the streets for no reason was incomprehensible.

Orso rested his head on the table before him. He was talented at putting abstract concepts together. That was essentially his entire profession: he wrote essays and arguments that convinced reality to do some new and interesting things. So if there was one thing he truly despised – one thing that absolutely, positively drove him mad – it was when

Any given innovation that empowers the individual will inevitably come to empower the powerful much, much more.