“Female Mercenary. This will be a companion on your Tour. She is usually tall, thin and wiry, silent, and neurotic. Sex scares her. This is because she either came from a nunnery or was raped as a child. Or both. Somehow this inspired her to become a mercenary and she is very good at her job. You can rely on her absolutely in a fight. She can usually kill two people at once while guarding your back in between. The rest of the time, she will irritate you with lots of punctilious weapons cleaning and a perpetual insistence that a proper watch be kept. Mostly, she will have no magic talents, but sometimes, in an emergency, she will come up with a gift or vision. You will end up grudgingly admiring her.”

“Slender Youth. A tour companion who may be either a lost prince or a girl/princess in disguise. In the latter case it is tactful to pretend you think she is a boy. She/he will be ignorant, hasty and shy, and will need hauling out of trouble quite a lot. But she/he will grow up in the course of the Tour. In fact she/he will be the only Companion who will change in any way. Quite often, she/he will soon exhibit a very useful talent for magic and end up by hauling everyone else out of trouble. But this will not be until midway through your second brochure.”

“As often happened, Charmain began to despair of getting her mother to understand. She's not stupid, she just never lets her mind out, she thought.”

“As she turned left to the gateway, it occurred to her that swimming was only one of a very large number of things she had no idea what to do. Peter had been right to object to her ignorance. "It's not that I'm lazy," she explained to Waif as they arrived in what seemed to be stables, "or stupid. I've just not bothered to look round the edges of Mother's way of doing things, you see.”

“She said 'Over my dead body!' so I took her at her word.”

“Typical!” he said to Sophie. “ I break my neck to get here, and I find you peacefully tidying up!” Sophie looked up at him. As she had feared, the hard black-and white light coming through the broken wall showed her that Howl had not bothered to shave or tidy his hair. His eyes were still red-rimmed and his black sleeves were torn in several place. There was not much to choose between Howl and the scarecrow. Oh, dear! Sophie thought. He must love Miss Angorian very much. “I came for Miss Angorian,” she explained.“And I thought if I arranged for your family to visit you, it would keep you quiet for once!” Howl said disgustedly. “But no---“.”

“Sophie said a bad word. In the dim light she had stubbed her toe on one of the many dusty bricks piled around the place.Naughty-naughty" Twinkle said.Oh shut up!" Sophie said , standing on one leg to hold her toe. "Why don't you grow up?”