Deep Roots

This world wasn`t the one I wanted, but it was one I could work with. For however long we could keep it whole.

I want you close. But that shouldn`t hold you back.

"I don`t know what I`m doing. Someone like me shouldn`t be standing between great powers and trying to shape their interactions. It`s hubris. It`s not my place."
"Great powers surround us. If we don`t try to shape them, they`ll shape us unopposed — we cannot let that happen again."

Cousin, if there`s one thing you learn among the K`n-yan, it`s never to trust anyone who wants to make all your decisions for you.

I still feel the wonder of having people I can really talk with, and I see that in him, too. He basks in ideas like he`s standing in the sun for the first time. I can`t fault him for naivete while he`s still blinking at the light.

"You`re telling me those... things... live right next to us," said Frances. "Just watching, when they aren`t coming through to eat dead bodies. How is that okay?"
"It isn`t," said Charlie. He frowned at his hands. "The world isn`t under any obligation to be 'okay.' That`s why we have to take care of each other, because there`s no greater justice waiting."

Hard to stand up to an enemy who has your body hostage.

I recognized, thought I`d forgotten until this moment, the loathing of strangers. Strangers passing through Innsmouth. Strangers in Arkham when we stepped off the bus, on the rare errand that couldn`t be fulfilled at home. Or mother had never brought Caleb on those expeditions — but she`d started to take me. It was a skill to be learned, to refuse the silent provocation and move on swiftly before anyone could give it voice.

I know full well how monsterous humans can be. But when men stab you in the heart, you know. You can be in terrible danger among the meigo and never see it. You can escape their presence and never know whether that danger stayed dormant, or whether you had to fight. You can fight and lose and never know.