"How very bright this empire of stars, he mused. Which poet had said that?"

“His last thought, as sleep overtook him, was that it was true what Cosimo had said: the universe was far stranger than anyone imagined, or could imagine.”

“Alea iacta est. The die has been cast.”

“A favourite saying in China—which she had heard on occasion from her own grandmother—was that the threads of life are easy to weave, but difficult to untangle.”

“London had vanished. In place of the lively, thrusting metropolitan conurbation was an empty rural wilderness of damp brown fields under low autumnal skies.”

“You see, this universe we inhabit is made up of billions of galaxies—literally beyond counting—and this is only one universe.”

“Here’s to dodgy adventures with disreputable relatives!”