You hear them gloating about trailblazing new technologies.

You hear them gloating about trailblazing new technologies. They crow about their methods of discovery. It’s foolish. They batter open a metal door and pretend the bone door was never there, or that both doors do not lead into the same house. Have they forgotten that this city is five centuries older than its lightning towers?

We harvested leviathan blood, we emptied ghosts, we drank from the rivers behind the Mirror. We paid a cost for it, and we learned what was safe and what was not, and we had respect. They move too fast, take too much, and ignore all warning signs. The energy they treasure is not defenseless. There will be consequences.

From the Whisper Grizelda Slake’s personal correspondence to Nalia Finn, her apprentice