"Of the three of us, I was the horrible one," I say. Sean looks at me then and I feel a bit like what Peg Gratton says I'm not. I don't want to be a line of poetry that Sean can't decipher, a mountain he can't climb, because it seems to me that once you've figured out a way to do those things, you've no reason to stay. "I'm still the horrible one, if half of Skarmouth is to be believed."

Pushing past the door, I'm hit by the rush of cool air from the library. It's not the same as the cool damp of Thisby, but I'll take it over the heat.

"I'm not sure that's the kind of adventure that would suit us."