Even when she slept, her anxieties did not.

Looking at the rich and powerful was dangerous, like peering into the sun.

Habits, places and faces grew into you over time, like tree roots burrowing into stone work.

Mother was like this sometimes. Conversations became riddles with traps in them, and your answers had consequences.

Lord Fellmotte was not a man. He was an ancient committee. A parliament of deathly rooks in a dying tree.