Oooh I am Unwell(tm) over Fire and Stars and What the Night Hides. Those two chapters so effortlessly and succinctly set up Dustfinger as a character I’m literally about to go insane about it asdfghjkl
Dustfinger’s playfulness and the richness of the prose during performance is SO tasty, oh my word. The way it foreshadows that he’s not from our world, he’s from somewhere different, somewhere more mysterious and magical, somewhere where he can have a word with the wind so it doesn’t play havoc with his fire, somewhere where fire is a creature he’s tamed
Then to follow that immediately with his betrayal! But it’s still a betrayal with an undercurrent of understanding (something Cornelia is so good at, actually. Understanding why people make the choices they do. We see it in Dustfinger and Resa’s dynamic as well). He’s wracked with guilt and shame, and having read the rest of the series that single moment leaves SO MUCH to unpack. This moment sets up the fact that he loves the Inkworld, his home, so fiercely and deeply he would do anything to get back to it. Anything.
Though don’t you think it’s interesting that Dustfinger knows Basta and the others are coming that night, and that’s the night he chooses to perform for Meggie? I think he’d have done this anyway, he delights in showing of his talents, especially to young girls who think he’s cool imo (after all, he had his own young girl back home), but he takes Meggie to the back of the house. Outside and away from the route Basta and his men would use to get to Mo. Dustfinger knows they aren’t under orders to take her, but it’s Basta and Meggie has a spitfire streak so who knows what might happen to her if she tries to stop him. So he keeps his eyes on her, and hers on him, so she doesn’t get tangled up in the mess he’s started. And later, when she’s screaming for her father, Dustfinger’s first instinct is to comfort her. Because he is a father. A father with his own bright, spirited daughter he hasn’t seen in a decade. But he can’t.
He can’t.
