What a mind that woman must have!" he said with admiration. It was the hushed tone of a jeweller studying the largest and finest diamond he will ever see.
Frances HardingeMy dear fellow," he continued more soberly, "If you have managed to complicate things by forming a sentimental attachment in less than a week, then I doubt there is anything I can do for you. You, sir, are a romantic, and I suspect your condition is incurable.
Frances HardingeGrab their lines! Stop that coffeehouse!" someone was shouting. "There are fugitives and cell-breakers aboard!
Frances HardingeMosca had never tasted power before. It was a little like the feeling the gin had given her, but without the bitterness and the numbness in her nose.
Frances HardingeThis is the young lady with the printed heart.
Frances HardingeBut in the name of the most holy, Mosca, of all the people you could have taken up with, why Eponymous Clent?"
Because I’d been hoarding words for years, buying them from pedlars and carving them secretly on to 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.
She did not hate Clent for the way he had spoken. For most of her life she had been at the mercy of stronger and more powerful people who cared nothing for her. She had always been afraid, and her fear had made her angry.
Frances HardingeAt first only Tamarind had noticed the awkward, disquieting way his expressions changed, as if a puppeteer were pulling wires to move his face muscles, and doing it rather badly. Nowadays she saw the fear in everybody’s eyes. Her brother was going out of tune like an old piano, and nobody would come to retune his strings. Dukes and kings may go mad at their leisure, for nobody has enough power to stop them.
Frances HardingeAnd you may comfort yourself with the thought that you have been the caltrop under her satin shoe every step of the way. You misdirected the Romantic Facilitator she had hired, you turned up in her own house and reported her plans to her father and when she was on the brink of snatching the ransom you careered in from stage left dressed as a pantomime horse and threw everything into disorder. And then, just when she was probably working her way towards claiming a second ransom, you rescued her.
Frances HardingeLittle god, you see the world through such black eyes."
"Got no choice. My father give ’em to me.
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