Inkdeath (Inkworld 3)

He heard the glass man landing on his bed. Hadn’t he told him not to jump out of the fairy nests? Never mind. Let him break his glass neck if he liked. So much misfortune! There must be an end to it, or his old heart really would break!

He heard Rosenquartz hastily clambering up the table leg. "Here you are," said the glass man in a muted voice, offering him a freshly sharpened quill.

Fenoglio wiped the tears away from his face with his sleeve. His fingers were shaking as he took the pen. The glass man pushed a piece of paper over to him and quickly set about stirring the ink.

"Where are the children?" he asked. "Weren’t you going to the marketplace with them?"

Another tear. It fell on the blank sheet, and the paper greedily soaked it up. Just like this wretched story, thought Fenoglio. Feeding on tears! Suppose Orpheus had written what happened in the marketplace? Folk said he had hardly left his house since the day of Dustfinger’s visit to him, and he kept throwing bottles out of the window. In his rage, could he have written words to kill a few children?

Stop it, Fenoglio, don’t go thinking about Orpheus! Write something yourself! He wished the paper wasn’t so blank. "Come on!" he whispered. "Come here, words, will you? They’re children! Children! Save them!"

"Fenoglio?" Rosenquartz was looking at him with concern. "Where are Ivo and Despina? What’s happened?"

But all Fenoglio could do was bury his face in his hands again. Where were the words to open those accursed castle gates, break the lances, roast Sootbird in his own fire?

It was Minerva who told Rosenquartz what had happened —When she came back from the castle without her children. The Piper had made another speech.

"He says he’s tired of waiting," Minerva told him in a toneless voice. "He’s giving us a week to bring him the Bluejay. Or he’ll take our children away to the mines!"

Then she went down to her empty kitchen, where no doubt the bowls from which Ivo and Despina had eaten that morning still stood. And Fenoglio sat there in front of the blank sheet of paper, which showed nothing but the traces of his tears. Hour after hour, until late into the night.

CHAPTER 31

THE BLUETAY’S ANSWER

Resa, her face pale, was writing in her best script. Just as she had long ago when she used to sit in men’s clothes in Ombra marketplace, earning her living as a scribe.

Orpheus’s former glass man was stirring the ink for her. Dustfinger had brought Jasper back to the robbers’ cave with him. And Farid, too.

This is the Bluejay's answer, wrote Resa, with Mo standing beside her. In three days’

time he will give himself up to Violante, Widow of Cosimo and mother of the rightful heir of Ombra. In exchange the Piper will set free the children of Ombra whom he tricked into his power. This agreement shall be sealed with his masters seal, so that they may be safe for all time.

Only when this condition is met will the Bluejay be prepared to Cure the White Book that he bound for the Adderhead in the Castle of Night.

Meggie saw her mother’s hand falter again and again as she wrote. The robbers stood around, watching her. A woman who could write . . . Apart from Battista, none of them had that skill, not even the Black Prince. They had all tried to keep Mo from giving himself up even Doria, who had done his best to warn the children of Ombra, and then had to watch as the Piper caught them, and his best friend, Luc, was killed.

In vain. Only one person hadn’t even attempted to make Mo change his mind: Dustfinger. It seemed almost as if he’d never been away, even though his face now had no scars. The same smile, enigmatic as ever, the same swift movements. He was here one moment, gone the next. Like a ghost. Meggie found herself thinking so again and again yet at the same time she sensed that Dustfinger was more alive than ever before, more alive than anyone.

Mo looked her way, but Meggie wasn’t sure that he really saw her. Ever since he had come back from the White Women, he seemed to be more the Bluejay than ever.

How could he give himself up as a prisoner? The Piper would kill him!

Resa had finished writing the letter. She looked at Mo as if hoping, just for a moment, that he would throw the parchment on the fire. But he only took the pen from her hand and added his sign under the deadly words a pen and a sword forming a cross, in the way peasants made their mark instead of signing their names, because they didn’t understand letters.

No.

No!

Resa bowed her head. Why didn’t she say anything? Why couldn’t she shed some tears to make him change his mind this time? Had she used them all up on that endless night among the graves when they stood waiting in vain for him to come back? Did Resa know what Mo had promised the White Women in return for letting him and Dustfinger go again? "I may soon have to go away was all he had told Meggie. And when she had asked, full of fear, "Go away? Where to?" all he had said was "Don’t look at me so anxiously! Wherever I go, I’ve visited Death and come back safe and sound. It can hardly be more dangerous than that, can it?"

She ought to have asked more questions, but Meggie had felt too glad, indescribably glad, that she hadn’t lost him forever. . . .

"You’re out of your mind! I’ve said so before and I’ll say it again!"

Snapper was drunk. He stood there red in the face, his brusque voice breaking the oppressive silence so suddenly that the glass man dropped the pen Mo had handed him.

"Giving yourself up to the Adder’s spawn in the hope that she can protect you from the Piper! He’ll soon teach you better. And even if Silvernose leaves you alive do you still think his master’s daughter will help you to write in that damn book? You must have left your reason behind with Death! Her Ugliness will sell you for the throne of Ombra. And the Piper will send the children to the mines all the same!"

Many of the robbers murmured agreement, but they fell silent when the Black Prince went to Mo’s side.

"How are you going to get the children out of the castle, then, Snapper?" he asked evenly. "I don’t like to think of the Bluejay riding through the castle gates of Ombra, either, but if he doesn’t give himself up, then what? I couldn’t answer him when he asked that question, and believe me, I’ve been thinking of nothing else Since Sootbird’s performance! Are we to attack the castle with the few men we have? Will you lie in ambush when they take the children through the Wayless Wood? How many men-at-arms will be guarding them? Fifty? A hundred? How many dead children do you expect to see if you try freeing them that way?"

The Black Prince scrutinized the ragged men standing around him. Many of them lowered their heads, but Snapper defiantly thrust out his chin. The scar on his neck was as red as a fresh cut.

"I’ll ask you once again, Snapper," said the Black Prince quietly. "How many children would die if we tried rescuing them like that? Would we manage to save even one?"

Snapper didn’t reply. He just stared at Mo. Then he spat, turned, and marched away, followed by Gecko and a dozen others. But Resa took the written sheet of parchment without a word and folded it so that Jasper could seal it. Her face was as expressionless as if it were made of stone, like the face of Cosimo the Fair in the vault in Ombra Castle, but her hands were trembling so much that finally Battista went over and folded the parchment for her.