The Creeping Shadow (Lockwood & Co. #4)

by Jonathan Stroud

Making tea is a ritual that stops the world from falling in on you. Everything pauses while you do familiar things with taps and kettles: it allows you to get your breath back and become calm.

a thin and rangy youth, hair spiked, hands in pockets, staring at me. He stood amidst a pile of discarded jars and boxes. He was as grey as the inhabitants of the dark village, except for his grin, which gleamed sardonically even in the swirling dusk and was somehow most familiar. He stretched out an arm and pointed behind me.