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

“You stole my mother’s Faces," whispered Neverfell. "You stole them, and you sold them, and you walked around wearing them, and using them to make people do what you wanted. You used my mother’s Faces on me. And all the time you were her murderess or close enough. All that time you were trying to murder me.”

“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.”

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

“Hmm. Did you used to be smaller? About so high?’ He held out his hand three and a half feet above what now appeared to be the ground.‘Er...yes? Um...some years ago?’ Neverfell was not sure what more to say. ‘That’s...normal, isn’t it? People getting bigger?’‘Yes, I suppose so.”

“Have you ever seen an anthill?" he said at last. "A machine of tiny marchers. Too much motion, you cannot make out the aims in it. But take something away from that anthill – a stone, a leaf, a dead caterpillar – and the ants scurry. You see which ones you have sabotaged, which ones are disturbed and scuttling to prop something in its place. That is what I do. That is kleptomancy. Divination by theft. Find something that is important, something on which you suspect many plans rely, and remove it. Then sit and watch. That’s why stealing you will help, even if you know nothing. Right now, the people who want to use you and the people who want you dead will be in a race to find you before the other does. People in a hurry often show their hand by mistake.”

“If you want someone to tell you what to think...""You will never be short of people willing to do so.”