Oh.′ A syllable can express a great deal. Will’s sounded of resignation but also of swear words, and the smell of rotting vegetation, and wary amusement and bitten fingernails.

Sometimes it seemed difficult for the adults in Sophie’s life to tell between ‘carried away’ and ’absolutely correct but unbelieved.

Sophie and Charles did not live neatly, but neatness, Sophie thought, was not necessary for happiness.

The dark-haired girl had the face of someone who had seen a lot, and wouldn’t mind punching most of it.

When Sophie had first learned to read, Charles had kept the whisky in a bottle labeled CAT’S URINE, so that Sophie would not touch it, but she had uncorked the bottle and sipped it, and then sniffed at the underside of the cat next door. They were not at all similar, though equally unpleasant.

Humans, on the whole, Feo could take or leave; there was only one person she loved properly, with the sort of fierce pride that gets people into trouble, or prison, or history books.

Feo shook her head; she couldn’t speak. The moments in which the world turns suddenly kind can feel like a punctured lung. She stood in the marble hall and cried until tears flooded down her nose and chin and dropped on to the heads of the two bloodstained wolves at her feet.

No harm in listening. Alexei’s a child, not a wizard. We don’t lose control of our brains by listening.

Intoxicated with her success and his awed eyes, and with the way the wind rushed by and flicked delicate strands of saliva across her cheeks, Will spread out her arms, spun in a pirouette. Shumba chose that moment to stumble over a rabbit hole and with a terrific crash, that sounded and resounded for miles and miles of flei, Will fell into the long grass.

It is difficult to sleep when you are besieged by hope.