"Nightwood Lane isn't a major road but is busy enough in its own way. To the west it leads to Cuelon Road, one of Jalkin's chief thoroughfares; not far to the east, of course, is the Fountain Square market. Whichever direction the wind is blowing from, the calls of humans, neighing of horses, braying of oxen or clattering of carts can be heard during daytime. Vehicles pass regularly along Nightwood Lane's flagstones, buggies or hire gigs bouncing at high speeds off the cracks, delivery vans rattling in a thousand different places. Gellina's balcony looked over Nightwood Lane's northern row, which offered a pleasing variety of sizes and vintages. A number of buildings were eighty year old white towers, the crop of the years following the Great Collapse. A strangling terrace of earlier date still lingered and gave a clue as to the cause of the Collapse. The houses were impossibly tall and narrow; ostensibly they'd been reinforced in recent years and a solid collection of pillars acted as proof of the works, but they still waited for the next gales with apprehension. Just beyond the terrace was a broad two-story building made of attractive antique limestone with a concave facade. Originally a brewery it had later been converted into a school, and you could argue the moral message of that until the sun sets. Almost directly facing the Kenner abode was another imposing building, once a crumbling old mansion which had been 'renovated' a decade ago. Renovated meant that the old structure had been razed to the ground and a new one built on approximately the same lines. Old designs built of new stone had a strange and oddly vulgar effect - the material called for porticos and pilasters and groaned at its its over-decorated gables. But it contained a life-saving laundry on the ground floor so Gellina wasn't complaining.
"The 'mansion house' took up a lot of skyline but Gellina could still see over much of Nightwood Lane, to the dark buildings behind it. The buildings dominated the locality, climbing high and casting their shadows over the surrounding streets. The sun was almost banished from the narrow lanes between the buildings, creating a secretive land full of darkness. The buildings were oblivious to Great Collapses and architectural fashions alike and seemed to have stood unchanged since the dawn of time. The black cluster had the ambience of a city within a city, an area where strangers weren't welcome, where nothing ever changed and rules older than Jalkin itself still held sway. Or as Gellina thought of the Tonelays: home.
(from A Shining Light)