Change is necessary and, deny it as we may, in the end change is always inevitable.
Frances HardingeHe has been dying for a very, very, very long time, and his span came to an end as all eras must.
Frances HardingeHas it ever occurred to you that maybe you’re sane? That you’ve always been sane? That perhaps you’re the sanest person in the city?"
"I hope not," whispered Neverfell. "Because, if I’m sane, then there’s something wrong with Caverna, something horrible and sick, and nobody else has noticed. If I’m sane, then we shouldn’t be sitting around talking – we should all be clawing our way out as fast as we can."
"Oh, I don’t think she’d like that," the Kleptomancer remarked, with a hint of affection in his voice. "She needs us. Without us, there is no her, after all. She is the city, not the tunnels, and so she does everything she can to keep us down here. Sometimes I even wonder whether it is only possible to create True Delicacies here because she gives them their power, as a bribe to stop us leaving. When the Grand Steward declared that nobody was allowed to enter or leave the city, I believe he became her chosen beloved. I will tell you something else, though I cannot prove it. The city grows, and not just through the effort of pick and shovel. She has been stretching, spreading and contorting to make room for us all, and I think that is why geography no longer makes sense.
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.
But . . . I want to remember this conversation! I want to understand! I don’t want to be a toy! I don’t want to be a thing! I want to know how everything works!
Frances HardingeThere was too much to feel strongly about, she was stretched too thin, so she could not quite feel anything about anything.
Frances HardingeShe was not undamaged, however, and she knew it. No food or drink had passed her lips, but she had drunk deep of the Truth, and now it could not be flushed out of her system with bitter cordials, or washed from her skin, or picked out of her hair.
Frances HardingeIn Neverfell’s face the clouds broke, and her smile came out like the sun. She could not read his mind as he could read hers. She clearly had no idea of the calculations behind his decision. He could see that she believed he had been overcome by the injustice of the situation and instantly decided to right it. He felt a shock, as if her faith was a golden axe and had struck right through his dusty husk of a heart. The heart did not bleed, however, and in the next moment its dry fibres were closing and knitting back together again.
Frances HardingeFor a second, she could almost see Caverna as the Kleptomancer did, a murky, monstrous beauty, smiling her fine-fanged smile as she prepared to stretch and grow, shaking out her tunnel-tresses as they became longer and longer. Perhaps Caverna had already known that such an opportunity was open to her. Neverfell imagined her discarding the Grand Steward like a worn-out toy, and reaching for a new favourite, a man who could extend her empire and bring her new strength . . . Maxim Childersin.
Frances HardingeNobody was to be trusted. The plan that had ensnared her had been the brainchild of her protector, Maxim Childersin.
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