Zeal was like gas, most dangerous when you could not see it. The wrong spark could light it at any time.

For a tiny instant Faith wondered whether it would benefit the doctor's investigation if he experienced a cliff fall first-hand.

This is a battlefield, Faith! Women find themselves on battlefields, just as men do. We are given no weapons, and cannot be seen to fight. But fight we must, or perish.

Faith had always told herself that she was not like other ladies. But neither, it seemed, were other ladies.

She felt utterly crushed and betrayed. Science had betrayed her. She had always believed deep down that science would not judge her, even if people did. Her father's books had opened to her touch easily enough. His journals had not flinched from her all too female gaze. But it seemed that science had weighed her, labelled her and found her wanting. Science had decreed that she could not be clever… and that if by some miracle she was clever, it meant that there was something terribly wrong with her.

Myrtle shook her head. "I told myself that I was lucky," she said. "Your father never struck me, never drank and if he had mistresses he had the good grace to be discreet. He provided for me and my children, and yet I tried, year after year, to make myself his companion. The doors never opened, Faith. In the end I lost hope. Ah, but I cannot complain!" Myrtle swatted away the past with one delicate little hand. "It has made me what I am. When every door is closed, one learns to climb through windows. Human nature, I suppose.

But in the name of all that is holy, Mosca, of all the people you could have taken up with, why Eponymous Clent?" murmured Kohlrabi.Because I'd been hording words for years, buying them from peddlers and carving them secretly on bits of bark so I wouldn't forget them, and then he turned up using words like "epiphany" and "amaranth." Because I heard him talking in the marketplace, laying out sentences like a merchant rolling out rich silks. Because he made words and ideas dance like flames and something that was damp and dying came alive in my mind, the way it hadn't since they burned my father's books. Because he walked into Chough with stories from exciting places tangled around him like maypole streamers..."Mosca shrugged."He's got a way with words.

And perhaps some other later girl, leafing through her father's library, would come across a footnote in an academic journal and read the name 'Faith Sunderly.' Faith? she would think. That is a female name. A woman did this. If that is so...then so can I. And the little fire of hope, self-belief and determination would pass to another heart.

Who am I? The shell-selling Lace girl, the attendant of Lady Arilou, Mother Govrie’s other daughter, the thing of dust, the victim, the revenger, the diplomat, the crowd-witch, the killer, the rescuer, the pirate?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.

It could be kindness. Faith felt hollow at the thought. She had needed kindness before, and has received none. Now it was too late, and she did not know what to do with it.

She had needed kindness before, and had received none. Now it was too late, and she did not know what to do with it.

I don’t know. How can you know? I…I’m a monster. When I’m hungry, I might do anything.""Oh no, of course I couldn’t possibly understand you." Violet’s shadowed face seemed to be wearing a grim and serious smile. "I know, you woke up one day and found out that you couldn’t be the person you remembered being, the little girl everybody expected you to be. You just weren’t her any more, and there was nothing you could do about it. So your family decided you were a monster and turned on you." Violet sighed, staring out into the darkness."Believe me, I do understand that. And let me tell you - from one monster to another - that just because somebody tells you you’re a monster, it doesn’t mean you are."just now you told me what you did because you want me to stop you from eating Pen. If you were a real monster, you wouldn’t have done that, would you?" Trista’s eyes stung, and she wiped strands of cobweb away with her sleeve."Idiot," added Violet, for good measure.

People were animals, and animals were nothing but teeth. You bit first, and you bit often, That was the only way to survive.

There were kind lies. You still look beautiful. I love you. I forgive you.There were frightened lies. Someone else must have taken it. Of course I am Anglican. I never saw that baby before.There were predatory lies. Buy this tonic if you want your child to recover. I will look after you. Your secret is safe with me.Half-lies, and the tense little silences where a truth should have been. Lies like knives, lies like poultices. The tiger's stripe, and the fawn's dusky dapple. And everywhere, everywhere, the lies that people told themselves. Dreams like cut flowers, with no nourishing root. Will-o'-the-wisp lights to make them feel less alone in the dark. Hollow resolutions and empty excuses.

Silence itself could be used as deftly and cruelly as a kire

So what do you want?" asked Myrtle."I want to help evolution."Evolution did not fill Faith with the same horror her father had felt. Why should she weep to hear that nothing was set in stone? Everything could change. Everything could get better. Everything was getting better, inch by inch, so slowly that she could not see it, but knowing it gave her strength.

So what do you wants?" asked Myrtle."I want to help evolution."Evolution did not fill Faith with the same horror her father had felt. Why should she weep to hear that nothing was set in stone? Everything could change. Everything could get better. Everything was getting better, inch by inch, so slowly that she could not see it, but knowing it gave her strength.

Somehow the sting of guilt was always more acute when there was a risk that she might get caught.

My mother is not evil, Faith reminded herself. She is just a perfectly sensible snake, protecting her eggs and making her way in the world as best she can.