“The creature pulled flaky skin back from its teeth in a terrifying grin. Then it pounced.”

“Oh! Worm! Seth pounced, squealing when his teeth sank into his own tail. Ow! That hurt!”

“How am I to get back to my room dressed like this?"He grinned at her, his teeth flashing whitely in the dim light from the fire. "You'll leave a trail of water.""Which the servants will report to your sister.”

“A moth is such a simple machine in the animal world - the go-kart to the modern car - and it takes a lot of glitches to prevent it going. It's this intriguing simplicity, the idea that you could pull it into its constituent parts and put it back together in the same rainy day, that if you pulled back the skin, you could watch the inner workings, that makes a moth such an absorbing creature to study. Moths have a universal character: there are no individuals. Each reacts to a precise condition or stimulus in a predictable and replicable way. They are pre-programmed robots, unable to learn from experience. For instance, we know they will allways react to a smell, a pheromone or a particular spectrum of light in the same way. I can mimic the scent of a flower so that a moth will direct itself towards that scent ...”

“He smiled. Hesitant at first, then a blazing grin broke through that made my heart stop. I recovered and grinned back and went to throw my arms around his neck, then stopped, blushing. Before I could pull back, he caught my elbows and put my arms around his neck and pulled me into a hug.”

“There is no creature on earth half so terrifying as a truly just man.”