““The passageway smelled of smoke: burning wood, a torch, acrid. His head ached. Blood was wet and sticky upon his arm and on his fingers, and the orange glow of torchlight played from behind his back and over the corridor walls, leaping like a bonfire. There was a strange familiarity to it: the narrow walls in around him. And when he came to a wooden door set in the wall, he put his hand upon it and pushed it open. There was a room, and a pallet inside it; a small torch burned low in a socket upon the wall. A man lay upon the cot, his face bruised and battered, his hands curled against his chest bloody: and Laurence knew him; knew him and knew himself. He remembered another door opening, in Bristol, three years before, and a voice asking him to come outside his prison, in a Britain under siege. “Tenzing,” Laurence said, and, as Tharkay opened feverish eyes, went to help him stand.””
![“Inside its crumbling walls the house is riddled with bullet holes, and in its garden only the crimson dahlias still hold their heads high. Jing is lying on a chaise longue [sic] playing with his bird. 'I thought you were in prison.' He looks up, his eyes filled with hate and desire. 'You are my…” quote by Shan Sa](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/042/shan-sa-13713_quote_inside-its-crumbling-walls-the-house-is_13990.jpg)