Inkdeath (Inkworld 3)

"Shot and nearly killed? Dungeon?" Signora Loredan cast a helpless glance at her bespectacled companion.

"This sounds like a long story, Elinor," he said in his quiet voice. "Maybe you should listen to it."

But before Fenoglio could say anything in response to that, Minerva put her head around the door. "Fenoglio," she said, glancing briefly at his visitors. "Despina won’t give me a moment’s peace. She’s worried about the Bluejay; she wants you to tell her how he’s going to save himself."

This was too much. Fenoglio sighed deeply and tried to ignore Rosenquartz’s snort of derision. He ought to take the glass man into the Wayless Wood and leave him there, that’s what he ought to do.

"Send her to me," he said, although he hadn’t the faintest idea what to tell the little girl. What had become of the days when his head was brimming over with ideas?

They were suffocated by all this misfortune, that was what had become of them!

"The Bluejay? Didn’t the man with the silver nose call Mortimer that?"

Oh, good heavens, he’d forgotten his visitors entirely for a moment.

"Get out of here!" he snarled. "Out of my room, out of my story! There are far too many visitors here already. Go away."

But the brazen woman sat down on the chair at his desk, folded her arms, and planted her feet on his floor as if planning to let them take root there. "No, I won’t. I want to hear the story," she said. "The whole story."

This was going from bad to worse. What an unlucky day — and it wasn’t over yet.

"Inkweaver?" Despina was standing in the doorway, her face tearstained. When she saw the two strangers she instinctively stepped back, but Fenoglio went over and took her little hand.

"Minerva says you want me to tell you about the Bluejay?"

Despina nodded shyly, without taking her eyes off his visitors.

"Well, that comes in handy." Fenoglio sat down on his bed and took her on his lap.

"My two visitors here want to hear something about the Bluejay, too. Suppose you and I tell them the whole story?"

Despina nodded. "How he outwitted the Adderhead and brought the Fire-Dancer back from the dead?" she whispered.

"Exactly," said Fenoglio, "and then the two of us will discover how it goes on. We’ll just weave the rest of the song. After all, I’m the Inkweaver, right?"

Despina nodded, looking at him so hopefully that his old heart felt heavy in his breast. A weaver who’s run out of threads, he thought. Or, no — the threads were there, they were all there he just couldn’t weave them together anymore.

Signora Loredan was suddenly sitting perfectly still, looking at him as expectantly as Despina. The owl-faced man was staring at him, too, as if he couldn’t wait to hear the words come from his lips. Only Rosenquartz turned his back on Fenoglio and went on stirring the ink again, as if to remind him how long it was since he had last used it.

"Fenoglio!" Despina’s hand caressed his wrinkled face. "Go on, tell me!"

"Yes, go on!" said the bookworm woman. Elinor Loredan. He still hadn’t asked how she came to be here. As if there weren’t enough questions in this story already. And the stammerer wasn’t going to be a particularly valuable addition to it, either!

Despina tugged at his sleeve. Where did all the hope in her reddened eyes come from? How had that hope survived Sootbird’s guile and all the fear in the dark dungeon? Children, thought Fenoglio as he took Despina’s small hand firmly in his.

If anyone could ever bring back the words, he supposed it would be the children.

CHAPTER 37

ONLY A MAGPIE

The house where Fenoglio was lodging reminded Orpheus of places where he himself had lived not so long ago: a shabby building, crooked, leaning sideways, with moldy walls and windows offering a view only of other dilapidated houses. The rain fell inside it, too, because in this world windowpanes were only for the rich!

Pitiful. How he hated hiding in the darkest corner of the backyard, where spiders crawled into his velvet sleeves and chicken droppings ruined his expensive boots.

But what else could he do? Ever since Basta had killed a strolling Player before her very eyes, Fenoglio’s landlady went with a pitchfork for anyone loitering in her yard.

And Orpheus had to know. He had to know if Fenoglio was writing again. He just hoped that useless glass man would come back before he was up to his knees in mud!

A thin chicken strutted by, and beside him Cerberus growled. Orpheus hastily held his muzzle shut. He’d been glad when Cerberus suddenly came scratching at his door, of course, but one question had immediately spoiled his pleasure—how did the dog come to be here? Was Fenoglio writing again after all? Had Dustfinger taken the book to the old man? None of it made any sense, but he had to know. Who but Fenoglio could have dreamed up the touching scene performed by the Bluejay outside the castle? How much everyone loved the bookbinder for it! Even though by now the Piper must have beaten him half to death, he had become godlike when he rode through the gates of that damn castle. The Bluejay as a noble sacrificial lamb. If that didn’t sound like Fenoglio, he’d eat his hat!

Naturally, Orpheus had sent Oss with the glass man at first, but his bodyguard had let Fenoglio’s landlady catch him. There was no dark corner where that great hulk could lurk unseen, and Ironstone hadn’t even reached the stairs leading to Fenoglio’s room.

A chicken had chased him through the mud and a cat had almost bitten his head off— you certainly couldn’t say that glass men made ideal spies, but their small size came in so handy! The same was true of fairies, of course, but they forgot the least little errand before they’d even flown out of the window and after all, Fenoglio himself used his glass man as a spy, although he was lamentably unfit for the job.

No, Ironstone was much better at it. However, unlike Fenoglio’s glass man, he suffered from vertigo, which made it impossible for him to cross rooftops, and even on the ground he was so bad at finding his way that Orpheus found it better to put him down at the foot of Fenoglio’s stairs, if he wanted to be sure he wouldn’t get hopelessly lost.

But where the devil was he now? Admittedly, climbing those stairs was like scaling a mountain for a glass man, but all the same. . .. There was a goat bleating noisily in the shed behind which Orpheus was standing it had probably caught the dog’s scent

— and some kind of liquid was seeping through the leather of his boots. Its smell was suspiciously appealing to Cerberus, who was snuffling around in the mud so greedily that Orpheus had to keep tugging him away from it.

Ah, here came Ironstone at last! He jumped from step to step, nimble as a mouse.

Fabulous. For a glass man, he was a tough little fellow. It was to be hoped that what he’d found out was worth the ruin of those expensive boots.

Orpheus bent down to Cerberus’s collar and took off the chain, which for want of a dog leash he had ordered in Smiths’ Alley. Cerberus trotted over to the stairs and plucked the protesting glass man off the bottom step. Ironstone claimed that the dog’s slobber brought his glass skin out in a rash, but how else was he going to get through the mud with those thin legs of his? An old woman looked out of her window as the dog trotted back to Orpheus, but luckily it wasn’t Fenoglio’s landlady.