Sam picked up his pack, but before he could put it on, Mogget leaped onto it and slid under the top flap. All that could be seen of him were his green eyes and one white-furred ear. "Remember I advised against this way," he instructed. "Wake me when whatever terrible thing is a about to happen happens, or if it appears I might get wet.

I suppose you could call me...Soot," said the thing. "Yes...Soot. I have breathed it, lived in it, and eaten it for so long that it is a fitting name." "Eaten it?" asked Suzy. "Why eat soot?" "Boredom," said Soot.

I certainly have had experiences of a sense of wonder at the world and a feeling that even though it could all be explained rationally, it still feels that there is more to it.

Even now, she wished she could write a note, push it across the table, and go away to her room. But she was no longer a Second Assistant Librarian of the Great Library of the Clayr. Those days were gone, vanished with everything else that had defined her previous existence and identity.

No mother, no father, no Sight.

So I'll do that, and I'll do my best and if my best isn't good enough, at least I will have done everything I could, everything that is in me. I don't have to try to be someone else, someone I could never be.

Death and what came after death was no great mystery to Sabriel. She just wished it was.