"In public? In front of everyone? These are normal, decent people,” said Maud heatedly. “Most of them won’t see murder as a means justifying an end!”

“You have a naive view of normal people, Miss Blyth,” said Walter. “Public executions of dangerous criminals have always been well attended. They still report on hangings in the papers. That’s not murder. It’s the world being set right."

Something moved in Alan the way he imagined worlds moved in the dark of the universe.

Despite the gulf between their lives, they had this in common: neither of them was given to trust. Both of them had been twisted up by the plain facts of their existence. The past could turn you into a strip of paper with a single side, so that comfort and vulnerability slid away down invisible channels and couldn’t be grasped.

Except, perhaps, if you bent your will towards unlearning your own history. If you let yourself soften and be porous. Even if only like this, in silence, and at an angle.