Yay!!

The copy of Fly by night from a different library arrived today- and it is intact! Now I don't have to guess what happened when Mosca swam from the floating coffeehouse to go tell the Stationers about Lady Tamarind's plot against the Locksmiths and persuade them to warn the Watermen about the Birdcatchers!

It has been... incredibly difficult to refrain from sneaking the reading instead of working. BAD MONKEY!

Happy sigh

I just read the part of Fly by night that was missing from the previous copy I read. There was another significant appearance by Saracen, the goose, and a duel between the Duke and Blythe, the highwayman. On shipboard. Two different ships. Which the Duke would have won by cheating, except a kite cracked him on the back of the head. Well worth the reading!

I went on and reread the last of the book, too. And here is why Mosca Mye, our lead character, is so amazing and awesome. She has departed the city with Eponymous Clent, kind of in a rush. Well, he did keep telling her to keep walking, as it was practically a miracle that they were allowed to leave. But Clent stops them on a bridge, and takes the leash that they're using to lead Saracen along with them. And this is how it goes:

***
"The Guildmasters may have banished us, but their displeasure lies chiefly on my shoulders... and perhaps that of the goose. The truth is, they care little where you go. Pertellis has an interest in your welfare, and if you went to him I have no doubt he would take you in."

It was true, Mosca felt it. And as if she were riffling the years of her life like pages of her book, she saw in a very few seconds what would happen and how it would all go. Pertellis's spring-blue eyes would brighten and he would take her in without hesitation or reproach. Miss Kitely would pick out some clothes for her, and she would find herself taking dictation in the Floating School, then teaching the younger children when it was noticed how well she read. In a hundred quiet little ways she would become trusted, and appreciated, and finally necessary. One day Pertellis would look up at her as she marshaled his library, and he would realize that she was not twelve now, she was twenty. And she would marry him, or someone very like him... as her mother had done.

"No," said Mosca.

"You have a chance of security here-- food, shelter, friends, prospects... books..."

"No." Mosca bit her lip and shook her head firmly. Books no longer seemed quite enough. I don't want a happy ending, I want more story.

***

Is that an awesome heroine, or what?