A pedestal is the most insidious prison ever devised.

How much do you know about the Heartland War?' Connor shrugs. 'It was the last chapter in our history textbook, but we had state testing, so we never got to it.

How easy is murder when one calls it by a different name? How much easier is it for the conscience to condone "reaping" than "killing"-and when one knows that death isn't the end, does it stop the killing hand for fear of retribution, or does it simply make it easier to kill, because, if life continues, how can murder be murder at all?

Perhaps, thought Talon, there was a path in between. A way to shed their ignorance without losing their souls.

She smiles at them as they go by and continues to play, making it clear that this furnace of a place, full of planes that cannot fly, is more than it seems. It is a womb of redemption for every Unwind, and fora ll those who fought the Heartland War and lost - which was everybody.

You know that feeling you get when your leg falls asleep? Well, I suddenly had that feeling in my spine. Like termites were chewing through the marrow in my backbone.

I smell fear, he said with a quiet intensity. But not nearly enough.