Church’s mouth hardened. “Does it? By what logic? No, I want an actual answer. How does killing a monster make you a monster?”

“There was that old saying, from . . . Nietzsche, I think. Something about ‘If you fight monsters you become one.’”

Church sniffed. “Nietzsche is often misquoted and nearly always misunderstood. What he said was: ‘Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster . . . for when you gaze long into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.’ His words were a caution, but he wasn’t speaking in absolutes. The logic many people infer from that quote is that if you do monstrous things you will inevitably become a monster, but that isn’t so. Are you so close-minded that you think every soldier who has ever killed for his or her country immediately and irrevocably became a monster? That the act of killing makes everyone irredeemable?”

“No . . . that’s not what I . . . ”

“You’re a very smart young woman, Dahlia, but even smart people can be lazy in thinking. You are speaking from a place of hurt and fear, not from a distance that allows for insight and understanding. Consider . . . when this war happens, Neeko will likely have to fight and he may have to kill. Will that condemn him to a changed nature where he will be defined only by what he had to do? Shouldn’t he be viewed through the lens of context? If he kills to prevent the Rovers from raping, brutalizing, and killing many others, does that truly make him as bad as them?”

Now she was crying. Slow tears fell crookedly down her cheeks as she shook her head.

“Wars are fought by people,” said Church. “Some of those people become monsters. A few. Not all. Not most. The rest . . . ? If they’re lucky, they go home to be with the people they fought for. They find a way to lay down their weapons and most of them manage it. And although they carry some scars, in flesh and soul, they are allowed to stop being soldiers.” He paused and tilted his head to appraise her. “Tell me . . . do you want to go to war with the Rovers?”

“God, no!”

“Will you if they attack this camp?”

“Sure, but—”

“Would you step in to fight them if you saw them raiding one of those caravans we sent to Asheville? The one last week, for example. There were sixteen children under ten, and eight people over seventy. If the Rovers were trying to murder them and the only thing you could to do stop them was to kill them all . . . would you?”

“That’s not fair.”

“Of course it’s not. Answer the question, though.”

“Yes,” she snapped. “Yes, I’d kill them. To save all those little kids, of course I would, but that’s my point. It makes me a killer.”