“I can be a little prickly when people make assumptions about women.”

“This first part may be a little rough.' He waved a hand and did his best to appear as if he'd had enormous experience with levitating buildings.”

“This was war: a vast machine that chewed up people.”

“People who have outrageous skills and abilities are the gold nuggets in the river bed of human history.”

“Caroline rose. She studied him for a moment before sitting on his knee.He wasn't quite sure exactly how it happened. If pressed, he would have asked for three or four hundred pages to write a description of the series of impossibly graceful bendings and movements that ended with her perched there with one hand on his shoulder. He didn't understand - and he was sure that it defied physics - how Caroline could be so light on that tiny patch of his legs, and yet so weighty in the way her presence affected him. Her gaze, for instance, probably clocked in at about fifty or sixty tons, to judge from the effect it was having on him.He never wanted to move. Never, ever, ever. Let the heat death of the universe come along and he'd be quite happy to still have Caroline Hepworth sitting just like that, on his knee, looking at him without speaking. The tiny light of the shaded lantern was irrelevant. He saw everything, as if it were the brightest of middays.It was so perfect, so hoped for, that Aubrey knew it couldn't last. He glanced around.'What are you doing?' Caroline asked very, very softly.'Looking for whoever is going to interrupt us.''That's a pessimistic outlook.''Wars, especially, have a habit of ignoring the lives of people.''If you follow that through, it suggests living for the moment is best.''Live without planning? Without dreams? That sounds rather limited.''And that sounds rather like Aubrey.”

“George grinned. 'A pity you're perfectly dreadful at shooting.'Aubrey shrugged. 'I've had all the lessons. I'm adequate.''Adequate? I suppose it depends on what you mean. If you mean that you haven't actually shot yourself by accident, then by all means describe yourself as adequate.'George laced his fingers together and placed them on his chest. ''I'll come, then I might be able to spare you some embarrassment.''I'm honoured.”

“Aubrey Fitzwilliam hated being dead. It made things much harder than they needed to be.”