Frances Hardinge

“Every step she took seemed to show her a new danger. Talking to strangers could kill her. Failing to remember table etiquette could kill her. Ignorance could kill her. And now it seemed that stepping outside the tasters’ chambers for a stroll could kill her.”

“Yes, ma’am, I like raspberry cake, only I like it better with no poison or scorpions in it.”

“He did not look at her. He did not need to. Over the years she had built a special palace of the mind for him, and he had helped lay every brick. Now he could feel its golden walls tumbling. If he looked into her face, he would see hurt, bewilderment and the painful, necessary birth of doubt.”

“I lied to you and it was easy, because you believe everybody means what they say. Everyone’s lying to you, Neverfell. Everyone. And you can’t tell, because you’re just not very bright when it comes to people. Brighten up fast, or you’re done for.”

“Don’t trust anybody over a hundred and fifty years old, particularly if they look thirty. Anybody who gets that old in Caverna loses something, and they don’t get it back. They can’t feel properly any more. They’re hollow inside, and all they got left is a hunger – a hunger to feel. They’re like . . . great big trap-lanterns, all blind gaping need, and thousands of teeth, with decades to come up with tricks and schemes.”

“The common sense in Zouelle’s words hit Neverfell like a slingshot. The last time Neverfell had appeared before Madame Appeline it had been in the role of captured thief, and the Facesmith had duly handed Neverfell over to the authorities. If there had been any chance of friendship between them, Neverfell’s actions had probably killed it dead.”

“Everything is really something else in disguise. Of course she was no exception, she reminded herself. Everybody would assume that she was there as the Childersins’ novelty pet, or as a Perfume-detector. Nobody would guess that she was there to look for the person who had stolen her history.”

“It is terribly bad form to admit to being terrified for one’s life, but nobody in their right mind would go to a Court banquet without making preparations. One must have the right costume, the right Faces, and at least eighty-two ways of avoiding assassination.”

“Just for a moment Neverfell felt as if there were an invisible wire pulled to razor tautness between her and the other girl, humming tension into the room. If she blundered towards it, it might snap or cut her, and yet she half wished it would, so that she knew where it was.”

“Thank you," she whispered. "I promise I will not interfere in Court business again.""Oh yes, you will."Zouelle looked up to see her uncle regarding her with a sad little smile. "You decided that you were ready to start meddling in the great game. I really hope you were right, Zouelle, because once you start playing it you can never leave. You are in the game now, my dear. There is no going back.”

“Every inch of Neverfell seemed to be throbbing with life. Everything was new, and new was a drug.”

“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.”

“She had told Erstwhile too much in the past, and thus he knew that occasionally she did go crazy. Sometimes it was when she felt particularly trapped or hopeless, or when the tunnels were unusually dark or stuffy, or when she got stuck in a crawl-through. Sometimes it happened for no obvious reason at all. She would feel a terrible panic tightening her chest and giving her heart a queasy lollop, she would be fighting for breath . . . and then she would be recovering somewhere, shuddering and sick, devastation around her and her fingernails broken from clawing at the rock walls and ceilings.”

“Why don’t we give her a crumb or two of that?""For the same reason that I do not try to pull a thread free from a cobweb and use it to darn my socks," growled Grandible. "Pull on a thread, and you pull on the whole web. And then out come the spiders . . .”

“It is dangerous to lock oneself away and lose track of what is happening outside.”

“Cheesemaster, I know that it is almost a matter of principle with you, but you should actually be careful wearing the same Face day in and day out. It marks the countenance. Some day you may want to use one of your other Faces and suddenly realize that your face muscles can no longer remember them."Grandible stared at her, his face dour as a gibbet. "I find this one very suitable for most situations and people I encounter.”

“Nobody’s mind ever remains a blank page, however carefully they are locked away from the world.”

“She could recall almost nothing of them. She tried a thousand times, but for the greater part that section of her memory was as smooth and numb as scar tissue. Sometimes, just sometimes, she convinced herself that she could remember stray images or impressions, but she could not describe them properly or make sense of them.”

“He was bellowing a great many words that were new to Mosca and sounded quite interesting. She memorized them for future use.”

“Little god, you see the world through such black eyes." "Got no choice. My father give ’em to me.”

“And you may comfort yourself with the thought that you have been the caltrop under her satin shoe every step of the way. You misdirected the Romantic Facilitator she had hired, you turned up in her own house and reported her plans to her father and when she was on the brink of snatching the ransom you careered in from stage left dressed as a pantomime horse and threw everything into disorder. And then, just when she was probably working her way towards claiming a second ransom, you rescued her.”

“One of the two of us, thought Mosca, is in a lot of trouble right now. I wonder which of us it is? She isn’t turning pale or plucking at her handkerchief. Oh draggles, I think it’s me.”

“Lost: one bonnet, two clogs. Kept in spite of the odds: two thumbs, one life.”

“True stories seldom have endings.”

“Hate has its uses, but it will serve you ill if you wear it so openly.”

“Somehow, without noticing, Mosca had become old enough to hear about such things.”

“Mandelion spread itself like a butterfly of brick and slate.”

“Irrationally, Mosca felt she should have inherited her father’s intimate knowledge of Mandelion. His throwaway comments about the city should have magically meshed in her mind, giving her a faultless instinct for finding her way around.”

“Mosca felt something enormous swell within the knotted stomach that she hid behind her fists. It seemed it must surge out of her like a wild, black wave, sweeping away stalls and strollers alike and biting the plaster from the walls.”

“At first only Tamarind had noticed the awkward, disquieting way his expressions changed, as if a puppeteer were pulling wires to move his face muscles, and doing it rather badly. Nowadays she saw the fear in everybody’s eyes. Her brother was going out of tune like an old piano, and nobody would come to retune his strings. Dukes and kings may go mad at their leisure, for nobody has enough power to stop them.”

“She did not hate Clent for the way he had spoken. For most of her life she had been at the mercy of stronger and more powerful people who cared nothing for her. She had always been afraid, and her fear had made her angry.”

“But in the name of the most holy, Mosca, of all the people you could have taken up with, why Eponymous Clent?" Because I’d been hoarding words for years, buying them from pedlars and carving them secretly on to bits of bark so I wouldn’t forget them, and then he turned up using words like ‘epiphany’ and ‘amaranth’. Because I heard him talking in the marketplace, laying out sentences like a merchant rolling out rich silks. Because he made words and ideas dance like flames and something that was damp and dying came alive in my mind, the way it hadn’t since they burned my father’s books. Because he walked into Chough with stories from exciting places tangled around him like maypole streamers . . . Mosca shrugged. "He’s got a way with words.”

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

“Mosca felt filled with panic. She was an arsonist, runaway, thief, spy and murderer’s accomplice, and here she was of her own free will taking step after weak-kneed step towards the prison. She turned a final corner, and now she could see the prison waiting to pounce on her, crouched behind the watch house like a panther behind a mound. The prison – the ‘louse house’, the ‘tribulation’, the ‘stone jug’, the ‘naskin’. It would put out a great paw to pin her, and she would never escape it again.”

“Mosca had never tasted power before. It was a little like the feeling the gin had given her, but without the bitterness and the numbness in her nose.”

“This is the young lady with the printed heart.”

“My dear fellow," he continued more soberly, "If you have managed to complicate things by forming a sentimental attachment in less than a week, then I doubt there is anything I can do for you. You, sir, are a romantic, and I suspect your condition is incurable.”

“Grab their lines! Stop that coffeehouse!" someone was shouting. "There are fugitives and cell-breakers aboard!”

“Fear made everyone look very alive in a strange and fragile way, like the last flare of a candle before it dies.”

“What a mind that woman must have!" he said with admiration. It was the hushed tone of a jeweller studying the largest and finest diamond he will ever see.”

“The world is full of liars of different humours.”

“Do you know what courage is? Not a willingness to fling oneself into danger without proper thought – that is nothing, nothing. There is cowardice in all impulse. Real courage lies in thinking things through, seeing all the risks, and taking them anyway. Lady Tamarind has courage.”

“What a world this is, he thought. Children put us to shame with their pluck, and are shot in the back for it.”

“Besides, woods made sense. Woods were home.”

“Kohlrabi’s face had no expression at all, and suddenly Mosca could barely recognize him. His face had always seemed so honest, like an unshuttered window through which emotions shone without disguise. Perhaps his expressions had always been a magic-lantern display, a conjurer’s trick.”

“If nothing is sacred, then we are all left to crawl through the mud, and there is no meaning to anything.”

“Since the Heart of Consequence was ripped out of the churches, even the stars shine crooked in the skies. Everyone goes to church to gossip and envy each other’s hats, but the heart has gone out of it. This country is like an old mother dying, and nobody cares enough to save her because they are too busy going through her purse. Every city is a snake’s nest of pillagers, pickpockets, anglers, cheats, cardsharps, harlots, forgers, smugglers, charlatans, footpads, highwaymen, blackmailers, pettifoggers, hedge-robbers and drunkards – you have seen all this for yourself. How can their soul survive when they have ripped out their Heart?”

“Words were dangerous when loosed. They were more powerful than cannon and more unpredictable than storms. They could turn men’s heads inside out and warp their destinies. They could pick up kingdoms and shake them until they rattled.”

“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.”

“Would you have her birched in the public square? Baited by dogs perhaps? Madam, we have destroyed her good name, and she will find the world a much colder and darker place as a result. Even now her father is probably changing her name to Buzzletrice.”