One of Sir Topher's rules was to never indulge in sentimentality, never return for what was left behind.

Someone asked us later, "Didn't you wonder why no one came across you sooner?" Did I wonder? When you see your parents zipped up in black body bags on the Jellicoe Road like they're some kind of garbage, don't you know? Wonder dies.

Phaedra of Alonso’s death was a never-ending pain that gnawed at his insides. It made him a prisoner in his own cottage.

Because being part of him isn't just anything. It's kind of everything.

I live on the Jellicoe Road. Where trees make canopies over-head and where you can sit at the top of them and see forever.

I shrug. "I'll probably mention that I'm in love with you." He chuckles. "Only you would say that in such a I-think-I'll-wash-my-hair-tonight tone.

My mother, unlike yours, never exchanged sexual favors for a piece of silver," he said, addressing the first insult by banging the boy's head against the trunk of the tree. "And," he said with another resounding thump, "although I'm very familiar with that part of the female body, I take offense at being labeled one.