Neither Imogen's father nor Landy could write prose worth a damn. This was a shame, because the content of what they were talking about was fascinating.

"So objects have souls, sort of," I said, pacing back and forth in my room while Olezhka followed me with slight turns of his great big head. "But not really souls? More like they collect pieces of our souls. The more we care about an object, the more it becomes infected with our magic. Infected is the wrong word, and so is ...