aza’s Reviews > Nona the Ninth > Status Update

“Alecto was angry, and raised her up and kissed her. The child did not cry out, though blood fell from her lips and tongue, and she was wounded sore. For Alecto knew not how to kiss, except such as it involved the mouth and teeth.
And Alecto said to her, ‘why are you not appeased? That is how meat loves meat.’”

“And Alecto said, ‘Pyrrha, he laid me down as an appeasement to them. He fed you to them as an appeasement to them. But he has never appeased me, and now all he has done was teach me how to die.’”

“John had said, ‘it’s so beautiful. Come and look.’
She had said, ‘there are almost no beautiful things left. Where is Anastasia? Let me talk to Anastasia.’”

“‘Don’t worry, kiddie,’ she said tiredly. ‘I’ll keep loving you. My problem is I don’t know how to stop. And, you know, who you are—were—you’re capable of more than you think right now. I liked you. He liked you—Gideon liked you. My necromancer and I always liked you. And hey, what’s ‘like’ except a love that hasn’t been invited indoors?’”

“‘Camilla and Palamedes were loved by Nona,’ said Paul. ‘Pyrrha was loved by Nona. It’s finished; it’s done. You can’t take loved away. We loved you, too. Palamedes and Camilla loved you.’”

“But I am the Reverend Daughter. I am the Reverend Mother, the Reverend Father. I must find God, or some aspect of God, and understand it for myself; even if she lies, right now, in the Tomb.”

“Next to Nona, Pyrrha gave an ineloquent shrug. ‘Maybe I just like talking to other people who knew her.’
‘And should they wax so nostalgic with you, her murderer?’
Pyrrha was unmoved. ‘I like to think I knew her as well as anyone else, commander. As well as anyone could know her.’”

“Forgive me. Forgive me so I can know what it feels like.”

“‘Ah, children; they are very forgiving,’ said the commander, proving to Nona she had never been around children.”

“They hadn’t even seemed to notice. It was in Kiriona’s every movement: the bright, swift flexions of her arms, and the way she swung her legs, big and brash, and the weirdly easy, light grace with which she moved her dead body. Nona had never seen anybody so sad in her whole short life. It made her nearly afraid to die.”