(these paragraphs are not chronologically or necessarily connected in any way)
He looked at the little weapon, shining with all the marks
of carefully crafted deadliness. It had been gifted him when he took his oath
as an inspector, and he had sworn to use it in the service of bringing
criminals to justice. “I have taken vows to my King, Inspector," he said a
little hoarsely, and the words (though certainly true) seemed to smell a little
like a long-dead thing coming from his mouth. “I am bound by duty to carry it
in the pursuit of justice, for a little longer at least.”
It was one of those mornings where, upon waking up, things
were plainly Not Quite Right. Nothing so innocuous as everything being Totally
Wrong - just the slight off-set to the way things Ought To Be, like a sentence
that presents an otherwise grammatically correct front amidst a blur of
Moderately Unsettling Misapplication of Otherwise Acceptable Standards of
Grammar. Even when Nurse poured the milk into Lady Jane’s tea, though she
poured exactly the proper amount and neither a drop more nor less, she seemed
to be pouring it backwards. The perplexing indefiniteness of the Not Quite
Right state of things only contributed to the state of things, and by the time
half-ten had come Jane was beside herself with that worst sort of anxiety that
knows neither cause nor effect, but does quite well at being there nonetheless.
She gave him a look in her good-natured manner of disapproval. “I’m glad you didn’t rush to my rescue,” the reply conveyed not a little relief. “Such a scheme, if it didn’t get all the wrong people killed, would at
least have certainly gone straight to your head—which would have been an unhappy
ending enough for any night.” And then, quite unexpectedly, she buried her face
into the lapels of his coat (which she was somehow now wearing) and began to
cry.
"A sentence is but a cheveril glove to a good wit;
how quickly the wrong side may be turned outward!"
-Twelfth Night-
