In March of 1915, all three of Lord and Lady Chetwynd-Pitt's sons'd been gassed, blown up or machine-gunned in the very same week at the battle of Neuve-Chapelle. All three. Imagine that: On Monday, you've got three sons, by Friday you've got none. Lady Albertina had just, y'know, caved in. Physically, mentally, spiritually, brutally.
Speak to me about power. What is it?_ I do believe I__ being out-Cambridged. __ou want me to discuss power? Right here and now?_ Her shapely head tilts. __o time except the present._ __kay._ Only for a ten. __ower is the ability to make someone do what they otherwise wouldn__, or deter them from doing what they otherwise would._ Immaculée Constantin is unreadable. __ow?_ __y coercion and reward. Carrots and sticks, though in bad light one looks much like the other. Coercion is predicated upon the fear of violence or suffering. __bey, or you__l regret it._ Tenth-century Danes exacted tribute by it; the cohesion of the Warsaw Pact rested upon it; and playground bullies rule by it. Law and order relies upon it. That__ why we bang up criminals and why even democracies seek to monopolize force._ Immaculée Constantin watches my face as I talk; it__ thrilling and distracting. __eward works by promising __bey and benefit._ This dynamic is at work in, let__ say, the positioning of NATO bases in nonmember states, dog training, and putting up with a shitty job for your working life. How am I doing?_ Security Goblin__ sneeze booms through the chapel. __ou scratch the surface,_ says Immaculée Constantin. I feel lust and annoyance. __cratch deeper, then._ She brushes a tuft of fluff off her glove and appears to address her hand: __ower is lost or won, never created or destroyed. Power is a visitor to, not a possession of, those it empowers. The mad tend to crave it, many of the sane crave it, but the wise worry about its long-term side effects. Power is crack cocaine for your ego and battery acid for your soul. Power__ comings and goings, from host to host, via war, marriage, ballot box, diktat, and accident of birth, are the plot of history. The empowered may serve justice, remodel the Earth, transform lush nations into smoking battlefields, and bring down skyscrapers, but power itself is amoral._ Immaculée Constantin now looks up at me. __ower will notice you. Power is watching you now. Carry on as you are, and power will favor you. But power will also laugh at you, mercilessly, as you lie dying in a private clinic, a few fleeting decades from now. Power mocks all its illustrious favorites as they lie dying. __mperious Caesar, dead and turn__ to clay, might stop a hole to keep the wind away._ That thought sickens me, Hugo Lamb, like nothing else. Doesn__ it sicken you?
The Bone Clocks
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Speak to me about power. What is it?_ I do believe I__ being out-Cambridged. __ou want me to discuss power? Right here and now?_ Her shapely head tilts. __o time except the present._ __kay._ Only for a ten. __ower is the ability to make someone do what they otherwise wouldn__, or deter them from doing what they otherwise would._ Immaculée Constantin is unreadable. __ow?_ __y coercion and reward. Carrots and sticks, though in bad light one looks much like the other. Coercion is predicated upon the fear of violence or suffering. __bey, or you__l regret it._ Tenth-century Danes exacted tribute by it; the cohesion of the Warsaw Pact rested upon it; and playground bullies rule by it. Law and order relies upon it. That__ why we bang up criminals and why even democracies seek to monopolize force._ Immaculée Constantin watches my face as I talk; it__ thrilling and distracting. __eward works by promising __bey and benefit._ This dynamic is at work in, let__ say, the positioning of NATO bases in nonmember states, dog training, and putting up with a shitty job for your working life. How am I doing?_ Security Goblin__ sneeze booms through the chapel. __ou scratch the surface,_ says Immaculée Constantin. I feel lust and annoyance. __cratch deeper, then._ She brushes a tuft of fluff off her glove and appears to address her hand: __ower is lost or won, never created or destroyed. Power is a visitor to, not a possession of, those it empowers. The mad tend to crave it, many of the sane crave it, but the wise worry about its long-term side effects. Power is crack cocaine for your ego and battery acid for your soul. Power__ comings and goings, from host to host, via war, marriage, ballot box, diktat, and accident of birth, are the plot of history. The empowered may serve justice, remodel the Earth, transform lush nations into smoking battlefields, and bring down skyscrapers, but power itself is amoral._ Immaculée Constantin now looks up at me. __ower will notice you. Power is watching you now. Carry on as you are, and power will favor you. But power will also laugh at you, mercilessly, as you lie dying in a private clinic, a few fleeting decades from now. Power mocks all its illustrious favorites as they lie dying. __mperious Caesar, dead and turn__ to clay, might stop a hole to keep the wind away._ That thought sickens me, Hugo Lamb, like nothing else. Doesn__ it sicken you?
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Value your parabatai," he said. "For it is a precious bond. All love is precious. It is why we do what we do. Why do we fight demons? Why are they not fit custodians of this world? What makes us better? It is because they do not build, but destroy. They do not love, but hate only. We are human and fallible, we Shadowhunters. But if we did not have the capability to love, we could not guard humans; we must love to guard them. My parabatai, he loved like few ever could love, with all and everything. I see you are like that too; it burns more brightly in you than the fire of Heaven
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What if the differences between social strata stem not from genomics or inherent xcellence or even dollars, but merely differences in knowledge? Would this not mean the whole Pyramid is built on shifting sands?" I speculated such a suggestion could be seen as a serious deviancy. Melphi seemed delited. "Try this for deviancy: fabricants are mirrors held up to purebloods' consciences; what purebloods see reflected there sickens them. So they blame you for holding up the mirror." I hid my shock by asking when purebloods might blame themselves. Melphi relplied, "History suggests, not until they are made to.
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