“what juggie said, ‘they’re looking after us,’ echoed what zhaanat had said about these lights being the spirits of the dead, joyous, free, benevolent. even cold to the bone, millie watched them for a while longer, deciding one explanation did not rule out the other, that charged electrons could be spirits, that mathematics was a rigorous form of madness, that she would go out on a regular date with barnes, that she had to because he’d asked her out with an equation, and who could say no to that?” (p. 435)