“If you say a word, it leaps out and becomes the truth. I love you. I believe it. I believe I am loveable. How can something as fragile as a word build a whole world?”

“How can something as fragile as a word build the whole world?”

“I hope you don’t mind my joining you,” said Leanne. I minded. After all, she’d tried to kill me. A girl in a novel would say it was hard to believe, but it wasn’t.”

“I've confessed to everything and I'd like to be hanged. Now, if you please.I don't mean to be difficult, but I can't bear to tell my story. I can't relive those memories—the touch of the Dead Hand, the smell of eel, the gulp and swallow of the swamp. How can you possibly think me innocent? Don't let my face fool you; it tells the worst lies. A girl can have the face of an angel but have a horrid sort of heart.I know you believe you're giving me a chance—or, rather, it's the Chime Child giving me the chance. She's desperate, of course, not to hang an innocent girl again, but please believe me: Nothing in my story will absolve me of guilt. It will only prove what I've already told you, which is that I'm wicked. Can't the Chime Child take my word for it?In any event, where does she expect me to begin? The story of a wicked girl has no true beginning. I'd have to begin with the day I was born.If Eldric were to tell the story, he'd likely begin with himself, on the day he arrived in the Swampsea. That's where proper stories begin, don't they, when the handsome stranger arrives and everything goes wrong?But this isn't a proper story, and I'm telling you, I ought to be hanged.”

“Wearing a cloak is on Rose's list of the thousand things she hates most. The problem is that each of the thousand problems is ranked number one.'But Dr. Rannigan says you must and anyway, it hardly weighs a thing, it's so full of holes.' I swung mine round my shoulders. Rose hates any bit of clothing that constricts, but I say Chin up and bear it. Life is just one great constriction.'Ventilated,' I said, 'that's the word. Our cloaks are terrifically ventilated.”

“You could at least complain,” I say. “I adore complaining. It calms the nerves.”

“I was going to ask him, yes I was. “You remember Blackberry Night?”The torches were alive with yellow butterfly-flames. “I can’t forget it.” His eyes were whiter than white.“You remember the thing we might have done that night, but it turned out to be a thing we didn’t do?” It was late and my tongue had gone bleary. “The thing you stopped us from doing?”“I especially can’t forget that.”I was asking about lust, wasn’t I? I was fairly certain of it. But isn’t love supposed to come before lust? It does in the dictionary.”