Inkdeath (Inkworld 3)

Lost.

He was lost.

Mo sensed Fenoglio’s appalled glance on him. Yes, look at me, he thought. Are the words "reckless idiot" written as black as ink on my fore head ?

However, Balbulus smiled. His smile was as hard to fathom as his eyes.

"Yes, Taddeo has told me about you at length." Meggie had given a good imitation of the way his tongue touched his teeth as he spoke. "Usually he is rather a reserved man, but he positively Sung your praises to me in writing. After all, there aren’t many of Your trade who can bind Death itself in a book, are there?"

Fenoglio gripped his arm so hard that Mo could feel the old man’s fear. Did he think they could simply turn and walk out of the door? A guard would surely have been posted outside some time ago, and even if not, there were soldiers waiting at the bottom of the stairs. How quickly you got used to the way they could appear at any moment, armed with the power to take a man away, imprison him, or kill him with impunity. . . . How Balbulus’s colors glowed! Vermilion, sienna, burnt umber. . .

how beautiful they were. Beauty that had lured him into a trap. Most birds were trapped with bread and a few tasty seeds, but the Bluejay could be caught by words and pictures.

"I really don’t know what you’re talking about, highly esteemed Balbulus!"

stammered Fenoglio. His fingers were still clutching Mo’s arm. "The. . . er. . .

librarian at the Castle of Night? No. No, Mortimer’s never worked on the other side of the forest. He comes from. . . from the north, yes, that’s it."

What a terrible liar the old man was. You’d have thought someone who made up stories could tell better lies. However that might be, Mo himself was no good at lying, either, so he kept quiet, silently cursing his curiosity, his impatience, his recklessness, while Balbulus went on staring at him. What had made him think he could simply discard the part he was expected to play in this world by putting on a few black clothes? What had made him think he could go back to being Mortimer the bookbinder for a few hours here in Ombra Castle?

"Oh, be quiet, Inkweaver!" Balbulus snapped at Fenoglio. "Just how much of a fool do you think I am? Of course I knew who he was the moment you mentioned him. A true master of his art.’ Isn’t that how you put it? Words can be very treacherous, as you really should know by now."

Fenoglio did not reply. Mo felt for the knife that the Black Prince had given him when they set out from Mount Adder. "From now on you must always have it with you," the Prince had told him, "even when you lie down to sleep." Mo had followed his advice, but what use would a knife be to him here? He’d be dead before he reached the foot of the stairs. For all he knew, maybe Jacopo himself had immediately realized who was standing in front of him and had raised the alarm, too.

Come quick, the Blueiay’S flown into the cage of his own free will!

I’m sorry, Meggie, thought Mo. Your father is an idiot. You rescued him from the Castle of Night only for him to get himself captured in another castle. Why hadn’t he listened to her when she saw Sootbird in the marketplace?

Had Fenoglio ever written a song about the Bluejay’s fear? The fear didn’t come when he had to fight, not then. It came when he thought of fetters, chains, and dungeons, and desperation behind barred doors. Like now. He tasted fear on his tongue, felt it in his guts and his knees. At least an illuminator’s workshop is the right place for a bookbinder to die, he thought. But the Bluejay was back now, cursing the bookbinder for being so reckless.

"Do you know what particularly impressed Taddeo?" Balbulus flicked a little powdered paint off his sleeve. Yellow as pollen, it clung to the dark blue velvet.

"Your hands. He thought it astonishing that hands that knew so much about killing could treat the pages of a book with such care. And you do have beautiful hands.

Look at mine, now!" Balbulus spread his fingers and examined them with distaste.

"A peasant’s hands. Large and Coarse. All the same, would you like to see what they can do?"

And at last he stood aside and waved them over, like a conjuror raising the curtain on his show. Fenoglio tried to hold Mo back, but if he’d fallen into the trap, then he meant at least to taste the bait that would cost him his life.

There they were. Illuminated pages even better than those he had seen in the Castle of Night. Balbulus had adorned one of them with nothing but his own initial. The B

spread right across the parchment, clad in gold and dark green and sheltering a nest full of fire-elves. On the page beside it, flowers and leaves twined around a picture hardly the size of a playing card. Mo followed the tendrils with his eyes, discovered seed-heads, fire-elves, strange fruits, tiny creatures that he couldn’t name. The picture so skillfully framed showed two men surrounded by fairies. They were standing outside a village, with a crowd of ragged men behind them. One of the two was black and had a bear by his side. The other wore a bird mask, and the knife in his hand was a bookbinder’s knife.

"The Black Hand and the White Hand of Justice. The Prince and the Bluejay."

Balbulus looked at his work with barely concealed pride. "I’ll probably have to make some changes. You’re even taller than I thought, and your bearing. . . But what am I talking about? I’m sure you’re not anxious for this picture to resemble you too much

— although of course it’s meant only for Violante’s eyes. Our new governor will never see it, because luckily there’s no reason for him to toil up all the stairs to my workshop. To the Milksop’s way of thinking, the value of a book is defined by the amount of wine it will buy. And if Violante doesn’t hide it well, he’ll soon have exchanged it — like all the other books my hands have made — for wine or for a new silver-powdered wig. He can think himself truly lucky that I’m Balbulus the illuminator and not the Bluejay, or I’d be making parchment of his perfumed skin."

The hatred in Balbulus’s voice was black as the night painted in his pictures, and for a moment Mo saw in those expressionless eyes a flash of the fire that made the illuminator such a master of his art.

Footsteps resounded on the stairs, heavy and regular, footsteps of a kind that Mo had heard only too often in the Castle of Night. Soldiers’ footsteps.

"What a pity. I really would have liked a longer chat!" Balbulus heaved a regretful sigh as the door was pushed open. "But I’m afraid there are persons of much higher rank in this castle who want to talk to you."

Three soldiers took Mo between them. Fenoglio watched in dismay as they tied his hands.

"You can go, Inkweaver!" said Balbulus.

"But this — this is all a terrible misunderstanding!" Fenoglio was trying really hard not to let his voice betray his fear, but even Mo wasn’t deceived.

"Perhaps you shouldn’t have described him in such detail in your songs," Balbulus observed wearily. "To the best of my knowledge that’s been his undoing once before.

By way of contrast, look at my pictures. I always show him with his mask on!"

Mo heard Fenoglio still protesting as the soldiers pushed him down the stairs. Resa!

No, this time he didn’t have to fear for her. She was safe with Roxane at the moment, and the Strong Man was with her. But what about Meggie? Had Farid taken her to Roxane’s farm yet? The Black Prince would look after both of them. He’d promised that often enough. And, who knew, perhaps they’d find their way back — back to Elinor in the old house crammed with books right up to the roof, back to the world where flesh and blood wasn’t made of letters.