Mosca said nothing. The word ‘damsel’ rankled with her. She suddenly thought of the clawed girl from the night before, jumping the filch on an icy street. Much the same age and build as Beamabeth, and far more beleaguered. What made a girl a ‘damsel in distress’? Were they not allowed claws? Mosca had a hunch that if all damsels had claws they would spend a lot less time ‘in distress’.

No." Mosca bit her lip and shook her head firmly. Books no longer seemed quite enough. I don’t want a happy ending, I want more story.

So this was a nest of radicals. She thought a hotbed of sedition would involve more gunpowder and secret handshakes, and less shuffling of feet and passing the sugar.

Everybody knew that books were dangerous. Read the wrong book, it was said, and the words crawled around your brain on black legs and drove you mad, wicked mad.

Where is your sense of patriotism?" I keep it hid away safe, along with my sense of trust, Mr. Clent. I don't use 'em much in case they get scratched.

That," he whispered, "is unthinkable." In Mosca’s experience, such statements generally meant that a thing was perfectly thinkable, but that the speaker did not want to think it.

Every time I do what you say I tumble a bit farther down this well of darkness, an' this here is a drop too deep an' too dark for me. I have to stop falling while I can still see a bit of the sky.