“Kim lifted the lid. Inside, on a small pillow covered in white velvet, lay a gold sunburst the size of her thunbnail, hung on a delicate chain. It looked a little like the first spell she had ever cast, a small explosion of light re-created in metal, and she was not really surprised to find the card with the single word "Mairelon" scrawled across it.”

“Safe?” Her voice was small, timid and delicate. But beautiful. The one word chimed like little bells. Her first word spoken to me.”

“Sighing, she headed back to work. She braced herself to lift the heavy lid of yet another trunk. The sight inside curled a small smile onto her lips, as it had with every trunk she’d pried open this morning.Books. More beautiful, precious books.”

“It was Miss Murdstone who was arrived, and a gloomy-looking lady she was...She brought with her, two uncompromising hard black boxes, with her initials on the lids in hard brass nails. When she paid the coachman she took her money out of a hard steel purse, and she kept the purse in a very jail of a bag which hung upon her arm by a heavy chain, and shut up like a bite. I had never, at that time, seen such a metallic lady altogether as Miss Murdstone was.”

“Kim was more than a little inclined to snarl at him, but in the past few days she had learned that snarling at Mairelon did little good. He simply smiled and corrected her grammar.”

“He covered her face with a pillow and lay on it. She got half a breath before he crushed her, and she thrashed like hell but in that second she knew it was foolish.”