Out of the Mirror, Darkness (Into Shadow, #7)

by Garth Nix

Harper knew he had survived only because of Mrs. Hope’s peculiar knowledge of the arcane. She had told him what to do, though she still had not fully explained how she had come to know of such things, other than to say it was part and parcel of a long and continuing struggle against evil.

He didn’t like to think of himself as a terror. Violence and fear were always his last resort, used only on those who employed it themselves. He fixed things with talk far more often than with force. But what people remembered and talked about was always the action.

Yet of the two of them, Harper would rather have Lowgen at his back in any serious trouble. The little man was all sinew and get-up-and-go, whereas Vance was merely big.

In the reception room, the junior executives did the jack-in-the-box impression again.

Loriquet was a good director but prone to acting herself—she liked playing up when there was a problem.

She spoke aloud, words Harper could not comprehend. They went in his ears and through his brain without lodging, and ever after he could not remember anything about them, not the sound or the meaning or the sense.