“Southampton's barrage balloons floated gleaming in the moonlight like the ghosts of elephants and hippos.”

“Southampton's barrage balloons floated gleaming in the moonlight like the ghosts of elephants and hippos.”

“It is possible there are some things you want so badly that you will change your life to make them happen.”

“The wave of memory had submerged me for a whole minute, while I'd just sat staring and let it all come flooding back.”

“How do you ever hold on to anybody?”

“That is a terrifically intimate thing, you know? Letting a stranger light your cigarette. Leaning forward so he can hold a flame to your lips. Pausing to breathe in before you pull back again.”

“If you're scared, do something.”

“Inspector Milne's suspicious prying appeared to have awakened her inner Bolshevik, and so I discovered my own lady mother is not above quietly circumventing the law.”

“I ken who you are! You're Strathfearn's granddaughter. Julie Stuart, is it? Och, aye, Lady Julia! Well then, Lady Julia, tell me -- who don't you deserve a glass of water?”

“Looking up at the stars and smoking in silence.”

“It's not unreal to me yet, though it might get that way soon. It still feels very real. And not even horrible -- the dead are just the dead. I am convinced that the living people they once were would have been proud of their protective bodies hoodwinking their murderers to save someone else. [..] But it's not civilized. There is something indecent about it -- really foully indecent. The civilized Rose-person in me, who still seems to exist beneath the layers of filth, knows this. [..] I have become so indifferent about the dead.”

“You can't just sit in a corner weeping or you'll die.”