“Hey, tell me, when did this conversation go completely whoosh?”

“Whatever humanity inflicts on itself, nature can always go one better.”

“Explain,’ the troll hissed.‘Explain what? I was just…’ Harry pointed back the way he’d come. ‘Let me go, please, sir. I won’t breathe a word about what I seen. Not about you nor the dead body.’‘Explain the dead body,’ the troll said, shaking Harry so violently that his teeth rattled. ‘It’s a body,’ he said when he could finally draw breath. ‘And it’s dead. A woman, in a coat, bleeding.’‘What colour fur?’ the troll demanded.‘It’s not fur, it’s probably wool.’The creature’s eyes narrowed even further. ‘Not the coat,’ it rasped. ‘On its head – what colour was the fur on the female’s head?’Harry frowned, struggling to understand. ‘You mean her hair?’‘Hair, fur, protective cranial grafting – whatever term you use on this primitive planet. What colour was it?’‘Sort of… brownish.’‘Brownish.’‘And quite long. I think.’ Despite the tight grip that the troll maintained on his shoulders, Harry managed to get one hand up high enough to show how long the dead woman’s hair had been. ‘About this long.’The grip on his shoulders loosened and Harry felt himself sag. Then he stumbled forwards under a near-crippling slap on his back.‘Good lad,’ the troll said. ‘Your observational skills are adequate. You would make a good forward sniper.’‘Oh, um, thank you, sir.’ Harry swallowed. ‘Can I go now?”

“The guards had asked the Doctor to please wait in the hallway until Mr McCavity had time to see him. So it seemed only polite, the Doctor thought, to wait until they had gone before he wandered off to explore the house.”

“Strax slammed his fist into the open palm of his other hand. ‘At last,’ he pronounced. ‘We strike for the greater glory of the Sontaran Empire. Sontar-Ha!’ His brow furrowed slightly as he saw the others’ expressions. ‘That is. For the greater glory of Paternoster Row, of course. Pater-Nos-Ta!”

“Madame Vastra and the others made their return to Paternoster Row by a circumspect route. Strax in particular was keen to intercept any individual he suspected might be following and forcibly remove a variety of their limbs and appendages. But Jenny prevailed upon him that most of the people he singled out were merely walking past. Given the lateness of the hour there were, thankfully, not many.‘What about him?’ Strax said, pointing to a figure shambling slowly along on the opposite pavement.‘That old lady is selling lucky heather, and she’s heading in a different direction so she’s unlikely to be following us.’‘She could be bluffing. And who is this Lucky Heather anyway?’‘It’s heather – it’s a plant not a person. It’s supposed to be lucky.’‘Not if I catch her, it won’t be.’‘Strax,’ Vastra said simply. ‘No.”

“He ain’t my friend,’ Harry said. ‘Not no more, he ain’t.’Strax leaned across to Jenny. ‘At what age do these cubs become grammatical?’ he demanded.‘Depends,’ she told him. ‘At what age do Sontarans become pacifists?”