“My child, you have a flawed grasp of the nature of myth-making. I am a poet and storyteller, a creator of ballads and sagas. Pray do not confuse the exercise of the imagination with mere mendacity. I am a master of the mysteries of words, their meanings and music and mellifluous magic.”

“I left you clean. Purged of all your ghosts. I am the one who has been haunted all my life. Haunted by you.”

“...the wincing sunlight, the ragged gorse and the slow-blinking wings of the moths were witness to an epic Trade in Exotic Terms.Mosca’s opening offer was a number of cant words she had heard pedlars use, words for the drool hanging from a dog’s jaw, words for the greenish sheen on a mouldering strip of bacon. Eponymous Clent responded with some choice descriptions of ungrateful and treacherous women, culled from ballad and classic myth. Mosca countered with some from her secret hoard of hidden words, the terms used by smugglers for tell-alls, and soldiers’ words for the worst kind of keyholestooping spy. Clent answered with crushing and high-sounding examples from the best essays on the natural depravity of unguided youth. Mosca lowered the bucket deep, and spat out long-winded aspersions which long ago she had discovered in her father’s books, before her uncle had over-zealously burned them all. Clent stared at her. ‘This is absurd. I refuse to believe that you have even the faintest idea what an “ethically pusillanimous compromise” is, let alone how one would...’ Clent’s voice trailed away...”

“I am anything I wish to be. The world cannot choose for me. No, it is for me to choose what the world shall be.”

“Even if it means I have to run off and live in the wild caves with a bag over my head, I still want to know what’s going on. I need to know.”

“You see, I had been exploring the tunnels of my own mind, and my greatest idea had come to me.""What was it?" Neverfell was fascinated. "I do not know," the Kleptomancer answered, perfectly phlegmatically. "But I am sure I will let myself know when the time is right. You see, anybody who chases a plan, however secretively and indirectly, gives themselves away. After a while you can predict them, work out what they want. So I decided the only way to avoid this was not to know what the plan was, or even the parts of the plan, until I needed them. Nobody could predict me, because I could not predict myself. Nobody could work out what I wanted, because I did not know what I wanted.”

“I no longer draw up maps – and maps are a Cartographer’s love letters to Caverna, his way of serving and worshipping her. She is in my thoughts all the time, but I am no longer her slave.""Then you still . . . love her?" asked Neverfell, struggling with the notion. "More than ever," her companion answered softly.”