Grey Sister

When, decades before, she had first been tasked to speak in public Glass had found herself seized by a fear that made no sense. Why did words she would say to any single person without hesitation become so hard to force from her lips when all those single persons were seated side by side? She had, of course, conquered her nerves in time, but even now, after a thousand sermons, a certain anxiety gripped her stomach before every performance.

It`s perhaps not true to say that no amount of training or skill concentrated into one person will undo a determined group of fighters, but when space is limited and the opposition are themselves swift and skilled it turns out almost always to be true.

The cell door began to open. And suddenly Nona had her answer to "what now?"
Now I kill as many of them as I can before they get me.

They`re sick. Evil.
Those are just words. Thuran`s desire [for revenge] is a pure thing. Just because it is at odds with your own does not make it lesser.

"This is the Harm. It has been in my family for generations. The pain it causes is said to be unsurpassed. Worse than burning or acid. Worse than any venom. And it doesn`t leave a mark." Thuran held the device above Nona`s stomach. he frowned. "It`s very effective but I`ve never really enjoyed it. Pain should leave a mark. Pain should be ugly and irreversible."

There are times to attack fast and relentlessly, allowing your foe no moment to regroup, but that is a tactic best suited to a place you know well or have studied in diagrams to the point at which you could navigate it blind. Having rung the Tetragode`s doorbell, the best policy, the one Sister Apple would suggest from her study of the grey tomes, was to lie low, let the defenders expose and exhaust themselves, and then to learn what needed to be learned before striking and striking hard.

Nothing makes the Inquisition`s job quite as easy as when someone declared their own guilt by running.

"Two guards is all I warrant, brother?" The abbess inspected the silver chain wrapped half a dozen times around her wrists. "I`m not sure whether to be offended that you think me so lacking in threat or complimented that you have such trust in my good behaviour."

Trust is the most insidious of poisons.

Spend too long watching the long game and the short game will kill you.

You`ll have to kill them.
Who?
The people you steal the food from. You don`t want any witnesses to lead your enemies after you. Keot sounded quite cheerful about the whole thing.
Just a line of corpses to lead them instead?

When strength is in your hands there is a temptation to lash out against what looks like injustice. But our rules are all we have to stop everyone lashing out, each to their own sense of justice. Battles are better fought within the system, even when it seems broken.

Our job here is to teach you to deal with failure as much as it is to teach you to win.

Don`t you teach the girls that sometimes you have to let your opponent get a good tight grip before you can use it against them?

These novices are my friends and I would die for them. I would face a terror for them that I haven`t the courage to stand against on my own behalf.

A sold child belongs to the Church in a way that a wanted child cannot.