“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.”

“So she was ‘my lady’ now, not ‘miss’. That was what she had always wanted, wasn’t it? Why did the words chill her? There was something so cold and final about it, like the click of a door closing behind her. Her childhood was over, and now there was only her place in the ‘great game’, and whatever role Uncle Maxim had chosen for her. There was no going back.”

“I know how it is," Madame Appeline said, narrowing her slanting eyes slightly over her ice-cream smile. "There is a feeling deep down inside you, isn’t there? All the time. It bothers you. You don’t really know what it is, or how to describe it. You do not have a Face for it. And so you scan all the Face catalogues, and ask for Faces for every birthday because perhaps, just perhaps, if you had the right Face, you might understand what you are feeling. You need to find that Face." She leaned forward slightly. "Do go and look at our exhibition rooms, Miss Childersin.”

“I should never have told you . . . I don’t know what happened to me. I just . . . wanted to talk to somebody." "And if you hadn’t you’d still be going crazy with what you know, and I’d be going crazy with what I didn’t know, and both of us would be alone. Right now, I’m upset but I’m . . ." Neverfell hesitated, like one stretching a limb they think might be broken. "I’m all right. I think I’m more all right than I have been for ages. Great big holes of unknown are the worst thing. Before this, I didn’t know anything was wrong but I didn’t not know, if you see what I mean. You can go mad like that. And if my face is spoilt now, once and for all, then it means I don’t have to worry about it any more.”

“It draws you in. You twist your mind into new shapes. You start to understand Caverna . . . and you fall in love with her. Imagine the most beautiful woman in the world, but with tunnels as her long, tangled, snake-like hair. Her skin is dappled in trap-lantern gold and velvety black, like a tropical frog. Her eyes are cavern lagoons, bottomless and full of hunger. When she smiles, she has diamonds and sapphires for teeth, thousands of them, needle-thin.""But that sounds like a monster!" "She is. Caverna is terrifying. This is love, not liking. You fear her, but she is all you can think about.”

“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.”

“Clent's expression had set up camp somewhere between amusement and pain. "Sometimes I forget that your small size is the result of youth, not pickling. You are... young, Mosca."To be young is to be powerless, but to have delusions of power. To believe that one can really change things, make the world better and simpler in good and simple ways. To grow old is to realize that nobody is ever good, nothing is ever simple. That truth is cruel at first, but finally comforting.""But...," Mosca broke in, then halted. Clent was right- she knew that he was. And yet her bones screamed that he was also wrong, utterly wrong. "But sometimes things /are/ simple. Just now and then. Just like now and then people /are/ good.""Yes." Clent gave a deep sigh. "Yes, I know. Innocent people force one to remember that. For you see, there is a cruelty in all innocence."Mosca remained silent for a few moments, daunted by the colossal sadness in his voice. "I'll never understand you, Mr. Clent," she said at last."Mosca," he replied simply, "I truly hope you never do.”