Look at your daughter,’ she whispered. ‘As brave as…as..” She wanted to compare Meggie to a hero in some story but all the heroes she could think of were men, and anyway none of them...

He bent over Farid and wiped some soot from his cold forehead. “Roxanne knows it,” he said. “She’ll tell it to you. Just go to her and… and tell her I’ve had to go away....

You’d like him back, too, wouldn’t you?”It was difficult for her to turn her eyes away from Farid’s face. “He’ll never come back,” she whispered, and look at Dustfinger. She didn’t have the strength to...