Status Updates From Death in the Spires

"'I have been mired in the past for a decade. I should like to experiment with a future, if I am to be permitted one.’"
...
"‘A toast. To what?’
‘Absent friends. Forgiveness. What happens next.’"

ANYONE WHO MATTERS HE SAID!!! Thanks for helping mend my heart

"‘I beg your pardon, ladies. Is anyone hurt?’
Hugo made a noise in his throat.
Aaron said, ‘Not you,’ with a calm simplicity more devastating than Nicky’s most baroque contempt. ‘Anyone who matters? Good. Well. What are we going to do with him?’"

Your honour, I love them
...
"‘I missed you, all of you. This is the devil’s own reunion, but I’m glad you did it, Jem.’"
...
"‘He’s going to have a seizure,’ Ella said as they passed. ‘Shall we all book tea with the Master as well?’"

:'(
"'He had Nicky for school and me for home, and he loved us because we loved him best of all. And when we failed to do that, when we put our own lives and loves first, we betrayed him unforgivably. We betrayed him, and you two stole from him.’ She glanced between Aaron and Jem. ‘Because Nicky and I were his."

+heavy fucking sigh+

"‘You’re suggesting he might have grown out of it,’ Aaron said. ‘I think he was, if anything, growing into it. You are both letting the man he could have been blind you to what he was becoming. To me, in that last argument, it was very clear indeed.’"

SPOILERS

"Jem couldn’t understand the horror on his face, and then he did. ‘You suspected each other,’ he said before he could stop himself. ‘You both thought⁠—’
Ella shook her head, a tiny motion. ‘Never. I never did. I never believed it.’
‘I didn’t want to believe it,’ Aaron said. ‘I never⁠—’"

aUYadsghdfnmf it's fine, it was called for, BUT GAH, Jem is right: "'You let us, all of us, wither up in fear and mutual suspicion, and look at us. Look at the damage.’"

"'I’ve spent ten years in mourning for a wonderful thing that was ripped away from me, and now I know it never existed. I thought we trusted each other, that we cared for each other, but I was wrong, wasn’t I? All this time I’ve been weeping at a grave, and the coffin was empty.’"
ouch

"Ignore any knocking; it will be students, thus unimportant." @ 73%
...
"'I hate to throw you out, but there is an illiterate on his way, fearing my undivided attention.’" @ 77%

"He couldn’t go on like this, loving people and suspecting them at once. A human mind couldn’t do that without breaking."

"I want your company for a decent stretch of the evening, and that ought not to be too much to ask when other people get lifetimes. I wouldn’t dream of asking for any such grace as is granted to most of the fucking country without question. I’d just like dinner with you.’"

"‘If I offered you a penny for your thoughts, would I want my money back?’ Nicky enquired.
‘You’d certainly be overpaying.'"
lol I love this book

"‘The expectation that a woman must be a mother, must wish to be a mother, must embrace motherhood willingly in any circumstances—oh, if men bore children, they would sing a very different song.’"
oh poor Prue :(

"‘Does your presence in my bed indicate that you have decided on my innocence?’
‘No. No, it doesn’t. Sorry,’ Jem added, and then realised quite how ludicrous that must sound.
‘I…see. Could I suggest not going to bed with people you think might be homicidal maniacs?’"
lol

"The simple word out loud, applied as a description and not an insult. It had seemed to shake everything like the beads of a kaleidoscope and make it all settle in different patterns."

"He didn’t know how to talk about this; he wasn’t ready, here and now on a rooftop, to hear that Nicky had cared. What that might have meant. What they might have had. What he’d lost."

LOL
"‘Do you have Dr Rook?’
‘For my sins.’" @ 52%
...
"One never knows when a student may appear; the place is infested with them.’" @ 56%

"He was the least of us, Jem. In the first year, it was all “Feynsham’s set”. By the third year, he was only notable because of us. And he didn’t like it.’"
...
""I looked and saw you were there, and it was a beacon of sanity, Jem. “This way lies that which is good, and clean, and healthy.”’""

""I’m sorry. I lied to you, or about you, and I threw your honesty and generosity back in your face, because I was afraid.’
‘Afraid,’ Jem repeated. ‘Of what?’
‘Oh, Jem. My god was a jealous god, and he did not choose that I should worship except at his altar.’"
...
""He was amused by dalliances that didn’t matter; he was not amused to learn about you.""

"‘You were always the best of us, damn it,’ Nicky said at last. ‘Your place was here. If there was anyone who didn’t deserve it—Ah, God. You were probably right about not having this delightful little chat.’"
...
"‘It wasn’t you,’ Nicky said. ‘Of us all, I’d say you are the only one not capable of murder. Your response to insult is to castigate yourself for what you must have done wrong."

"One of the people he most loved had become a murderer, and he’d never trusted anyone again."

"‘Ah, British friendship,’ Aaron snarled. ‘Tolerance as long as everyone knows his place; but God forbid your subjects should declare themselves your equals.’"

"These were the best friends he’d ever had, and they felt like strangers."

ouch

"‘Don’t,’ she said. ‘Don’t ask me to remember all the golden times and how wonderful it was. It’s such a lovely lie, and it makes everything worse now.'" (2/2)

"‘I remember all of you on the banks, screaming like fools as I brought the boat home. I remember how we celebrated when Hugo and Nicky got their Blues. When you became Treasurer and Hugo put you on that pedestal—’ Prue’s face convulsed, and she flung a hand up as if warding off a blow. ‘Prue?’" (1/2)

"He hadn’t wanted to believe that he was the only one of the Seven Wonders to be destroyed by Toby’s death; he’d taken a kind of unpleasant satisfaction in seeing that the others bore wounds, but Prue’s bitterness was unspeakable."

"And talk about the spiritual benefits of being poor is something you never hear from the poor. Only from the rich giving reasons why it’s not in anyone’s interests to raise wages.’"