Mae McDermott

“I was yours before we even met and I’ll be yours until we die.”
― K. Ancrum, Icarus

“This was written by a man named Olaus, you see? Before it could be a book, Olaus had to write down all these words. Probably used a pencil, like this one. Wrote one word at a time, about the tracks of raccoons and bears and wolves and big cats. He even wrote about the tracks a maple leaf makes when it blows across fresh snow. And now this book,” I tapped its cover, “is Olaus’s track. Because of it, we know this guy Olaus was here before us. And he loved animals, and knew all about them. Words are one way we leave tracks in the world, Sol. Maybe one day you will write a book, like Olaus did, or Molly Thorne. And people will read it, like I’ve been reading to you. They will know that you were here, and a little about what you were like.”
― Leif Enger, I Cheerfully Refuse

“You think I’d know art, and not know this?” Icarus said. He pressed closer, still. “There have been men like you before we had words for it.”
― K. Ancrum, Icarus

“We are one flesh.” Clack.
“I am your end.”
Pause. “That didn’t mean I got squatting rights in your soul. I never would have asked for that. I never had rights to that.”
Clack. “Sure. That’s why I gave them to you.”
Clack. Pause. Pause. Pause.
“I hope you know that I adore you, Scholar.”
Clack. “Indubitably, Warden.”
― Tamsyn Muir, Nona the Ninth