Status Updates From The Silver Tide (The Copper...

“The site itself had not been easy to find – she supposed that there were whole sections of Euriale that were simply much easier to traverse when you were a giant sentient spider – and now they were met with more obstacles.”

“Another monster was crawling its way over the shattered edge of the wreck: a giant, glorious lizard of cream and gold scales, its eyes like beautiful amber lamps.
It was a dragon, and on its back was a wild man with black hair and beard, a sword held in one hand, and a look of triumph in his eyes.”

“The web had ended just below her neck; when she looked down she could see the contours of her own body outlined in pale silver, as though she were already a ghost.

‘There,’ said a voice from directly behind her. It was low and deep, with strange harmonies. Wydrin felt all the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. ‘Now there will be no distractions.’”

“The voice was low and somehow insubstantial, and it seemed to come from inside his head. At the same time, the pond in front of him grew dark, as though something behind him were casting a large shadow. He could feel a presence, a terrible unseen shape, standing so close behind him that he was sure he should feel its breath on his neck. He knew, somehow, that it would be a bad idea to turn around.”

“It was a little like making the Edenier trap – the same sense of cold satisfaction at creating something from nothing – but without the creeping horror and sensation of violation that came with using demon-tainted magic. A fly touched his face, and he batted it away impatiently, smearing black mud there. He barely noticed.”

She loved the shape of this small ship, the segmented curve of the sails. It carried twenty crates full of the dried petals of a certain orchid, the captain had told her, greatly prized in the southern lands as a means to make both perfume and poison. That is what this place is, thought Ephemeral. It is perfume, and it is poison. The scent of the orchids seeped up from the hold until everything was permeated with it.

“he leaned back out to look down on the face of the ghost. The figure was still looking back up at him, he could make out the smooth planes of his face, the darker furrow of his brow. Sebastian thought the figure looked worried, or confused. And then, as he watched, the ghost began to fade away, evaporating like marsh mist. In a handful of seconds, the street was dark once more.”

I knew she was going to rip my heart out in this book. I just thought I’d get at least 100 pgs in first. Alas, this doesn’t bode well for my feels in the next 500 pgs…

Now Frith stood on the doorstep, looking down across crowded roofs to the sea below. The rains of earlier had cleared swiftly, just as Wydrin had said they would, and now the night sky was a hectic explosion of stars.

The light coming through the slats lay across his brown skin like bands of gold, and Wydrin experienced the odd tightening of the chest she often felt when [they] were alone. There had been other men, of course, men with whom she had spent pleasant evenings and memorable afternoons, but being with [him] made her fingers itch for her daggers, filled her with an indefinable need to fight, to protect.

Wydrin rose early the next morning, a fat slice of sunshine cutting through the slats, laying a warm hand across her forehead. She expected to find Frith asleep next to her, in the deep death-like sleep of the horribly drunk and soon to be hungover,

‘Augusta said this place was riddled with ghosts,’ whispered Wydrin. ‘I can’t believe the old baggage was right for once.’
Sebastian opened his mouth to answer, and found he could not. The sight of the pale-blue figure had stilled him, thrown a hook in his heart and captured it. There was something about it that was deeply familiar and deeply alien at the same time.

“There were oil lamps wedged into the soft dirt every ten feet or so, and she could smell their thick scent, along with the wild odour of Euriale’s dirt. And another, stranger smell. That was the Spinner.”

“There were signs now that she was nearing home – skulls propped on sticks and wedged into tree hollows, their smooth foreheads painted black and white, banners of bird feathers and bear skins hanging from the trees.”

“The moon had painted the clouds with light, and they hung in the sky like ghostly courtiers paying homage to their queen.”