To lose an arm or a leg would be painful, but to lose the central truth of your life felt—fatal.

It was, of course, odd for a lady to be opening her own door, but from the look of the place, Magnus assumed the entire staff of servants had been given the decade off.

What's the word for a perfectly reasonable fear of annoying idiots?

And of course Charlotte hasn't eaten a bit of dinner," Henry said, getting up. "I'll go see if Bridget can't make her up a plate of cold chicken. As for the rest of you-" He paused for a moment, as if he were about to give them an order-send them to bed, perhaps, or back to the library to do more research. The moment passed, and a look of puzzlement crossed his face. "Blast it, I can't remember what I was going to say," he announced, and vanished into the kitchen.

She had taken him for granted, she thought with surprise and shame, watching the flickering candlelight. She had assumed his kindness was so natural and so innate, she had never asked herself whether it cost him any effort. Any effort to stand between Will and the world, protecting each of them from the other. Any effort to accept the loss of his family with equanimity. Any effort to remain cheerful and calm in the face of his own dying.

Tessa is gone, and every moment she is gone is a knife ripping me apart from the inside.

It was strange how your world could shift on its axis and everything you trusted could invert itself in what seemed like no time at all.