It was all very well being told that she could do nothing to make things better. Neverfell did not have the kind of mind that could take that quietly. She did not have the kind of mind that could be quiet at all.

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’.

I'm never telling the truth again! It gets you hanged and locked out and starved and froze and hated . . .

Oh, painted smirk of a hopeless dawn, the girl is still wearing her breeches.

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.

I find it hard to believe that a lady like...’ Pertellis hesitated, and coughed. ‘There is something elevated in the female spirit that will always hold a woman back from the coldest and most vicious forms of villainy.’ ‘No, there isn’t,’ Miss Kitely said kindly but firmly, as she set a dish in his hand. ‘Drink your chocolate, Mr Pertellis.

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.