Status Updates From The Iron Ghost (Copper Cat ...

‘We will help you, Father,’ she looked at him, her yellow eyes steady and without mercy, ‘gladly.’ ‘Then let’s bring them a nightmare on the sunrise.’

“The man with livid-blue veins turned his blank eyes on them, an expression of faint puzzlement creasing his face. The light that was inside him pulsed. ‘It can see your soul,’ said Xinian, in a matter-of-fact tone. ‘You are about the only thing here left with one. And that will make it hungry.’”

“Inside the thorn bush, the fire became her entire world, so bright it blotted out the cold and the black. Nuava stared into it, telling herself the same things over and over until her eyelids began to droop: Things will look better in the daylight, and I will be able to find my way…”

“He saw her standing in the middle of the cobbled street, waving her dagger at the retreating thugs who had been trying to kill him, laughing so hard she had doubled over, clutching her stomach with mirth. When she’d got the last of her giggles out, she had turned to him and grinned, offering him a hand. ‘Come on, big man,’ she’d said. ‘That ale in your stomach will be getting lonely by now.’”

“His arms were burning with spells, and his head swam with words – so many held in balance at once, changing and shifting and being brought together.”

The monster smashed its bony head against the invisible wall again, its mouth opening slightly to let a thin stream of bubbles past its jagged teeth, and for a few seconds the force keeping the sea out flickered ominously…
Another crash, and suddenly there was a tear in the sky and the sea was pouring down towards them in a solid band of grey and white. It hit the buildings behind…

Always pale, now she was a sister to the snows that lay about them. Every freckle stood out on her face with alarming clarity.

“She glanced up to look into the shivering, nine-eyed gaze of the centipede queen. ‘Ah,’ she said. ‘I wouldn’t have thought such a face could convey anger so accurately. Fascinating.’”