This Is How You Lose the Time War

“Brinks,” says Garden, with casual fondness, “are traditionally stepped back from.”

“They are also fine places over which to tip one’s enemies,” says Blue. “Traditionally.”

Loss begs immediate response. Decisions lose the luxury of distance.

I wanted to say, words hurt, but metaphors go between, like bridges, and words are like stone to build bridges, hewn from the earth in agony but making a new thing, a shared thing, a thing that is more than one Shift.

Garden seems to like roots, and this book roots in rootlessness. Are you a tumbleweed, then? A dandelion seed?

You are yourself, and so remain, as I remain

Every cause needs sacrifices.

But butterfly wings break when touched. Red knows her own weaknesses as well as anyone. She presses too hard, breaks what she would embrace, tears what she would touch to her teeth.

Longing, this longing to possess, to become, to break like a wave on a rock and reform, and break again, and wash away. This is a necessary part of any ecosystem, but it unsettles others, this inability to be satisfied. It is difficult—it is very difficult, to befriend where you wish to consume, to find those who, when they ask Do I have you still, when they end a letter with Yours, mean it in any substantive way.

The abandoned bones tumble and tumble and fall and fall.
But don’t worry. The seeker catches them before they land

has her excuses ready: Since her disobedience she’s been a better agent, more meticulous.
But no reply has come.
Perhaps she was wrong. Perhaps her enemy does not care, after all.

Did her adversary—did Blue—ever read her letter? Red liked writing it—winning tastes sweet, but sweeter still to triumph and tease.