Meg Hapgood

Nassun walks the cobbled path above the terrace briskly, with her head down so that she can concentrate on not stumbling, since she can’t sess anything after whatever Schaffa did to the six-ringed woman. She’s always known that Guardians can shut down orogeny, but never felt it before. It’s hard to walk when she can only perceive the ground with

She was also quite tall for a little old lady,

Fat Charlie went back down to the end of the corridor, and knocked on the door. ‘What is it now?’ ‘I want to talk.’ The door clicked and swung open. Fat Charlie went inside. Spider was reclining, naked, in the hot tub. He was drinking something more or less the colour of electricity from a long, frosted glass. The huge picture windows were now wide

At another comm, whose people don’t even bother to warn them before aiming crossbows, it is Nassun who saves them. She does this by wrapping her arms around her father and setting her teeth in the earth and dragging every iota of life and heat and movement out of the whole comm until it is a gleaming frosted confection of ice-slivered slate walls

Buildings marked with a green X are known to be safe. A yellow X means damage that could spell a collapse, especially if another major shake hits the city. Red-marked buildings are noticeably damaged and dangerous, though you see signs that they were inhabited, too, perhaps by those willing to take any shelter rather than be ashed out.

They’re so ugly that in a weird way, seeing her like this feels almost more intimate than being naked.

I glanced at the bed where I’d woken up this morning to Simply Another Day. And I thanked God that human beings don’t have the power to see into the future.