“She turned to face him. The rain fell on both of them — equally, indiscriminately, the monsoon's great democratic contribution to a world that was otherwise stratified by every conceivable hierarchy. Her saree was soaked. His uniform was soaked. The blue light in her veins was visible through the wet fabric — pulsing, steady, the heartbeat of a power that had been in the earth since before humans had discovered fire and that had, through a series of thefts and gifts and choices and accidents, ended up in the blood of a twenty-two-year-old woman standing on a terrace in the rain.”