She was an outsider. Had left her sisters. Forgotten hive and moiety. - China Miéville

The lamp was a beacon, a lighthouse in that forbidding city, steering the wyrman’s way over the river and out of the predatory night.

I suspect there was a power struggle in the Embassy, that some would have tried, out of habit, without rationale, to wall up information. They didn’t win.

I see echoes with lots of books in all my books, some deliberate, some unconscious until later, and as long as that is respectful I think that's great - writing on the shoulders of other writers is a privilege.