It wasn't quite a question. It was more of an invitation to tell him whatever I chose. Eldric game me a choice, and it was this that made me want to tell him everything.

Our English monarchs are so unimaginative,” said Eldric. “They execute people in such tediously conventional ways.

It is true that I can trip over anything and nothing – a speck of dust, a patch of sunlight, an idea. I move through life like a person with one eye, through a landscape that looks flat, but is really tricked out with hidden depths and shallows. It didn’t use to be so, but no matter. I navigate the world well enough in my own way.

Poor Petey. I’d like to say I could almost feel a tender spot for poor Petey, but the truth is I’d rather feel at the tender spot on his head and give it a poke.

Father’s silence is not merely the absence of sound. It’s a creature with a life of its own. It chokes you. It pinches you small as a grain of rice. It twists in your gut like a worm. Silence clawed at my throat. It left a taste of burnt matches.

People think me a sort of Florence Nightingale, but I have no heroic qualities. I simply don’t feel very much.

I am entirely well,” said Eldric, “which has Dr. Rannigan exploring first one theory, then another, trying to understand. But not being a man of science, I don’t care about understanding. I simply want to go outside and break a few windows.