“The container had been packed half-full of steel cylinders of some sort, each one of them in a protective wooden box with a lid. Allan was totally exhausted once the heavy corpse was finally in place inside one of the two innermost cylinders. But when he closed the wooden lid and saw the address label, he livened up. Addis Ababa. ‘He’s going to see the world if he keeps his peepers open,’ said Allan.”

“In an instant he saw the delusion of his five hundred years. He was not looking into a box; he was looking out of one. All these centuries his mind, his body, his world had been a box of horrors. He took one last breath, then pushed open the lid of his prison and escaped.”

“Allan didn't even know if the Prime Minister was Left or Right. He must certainly be one of them, because if there was one thing life had taugh Allan, it was that people insisted on being one or the other.”

“The low, rough sound he emitted at that was infuriating, fascinating. Wait. Was he still growling? Or was he purring? His eyes drifted half closed. He gave her a heavy-lidded, sleepy, sensual, entirely disingenuous look.”

“He had learned something already in the course of his journey. If you carried a closed wooden box, people want to know what is in it.”

“But he suddenly started up, and closing his eyes, placed his fingers upon the lids, as though he sought to imprison within his brain some curious dream from which he feared he might awake.”