Inkdeath (Inkworld 3)

Oh yes, the sight of Dustfinger would have made him very happy back then. But now his heart beat faster for other reasons. The hate he felt still tasted like love, but that didn’t tame it. And suddenly Orpheus saw the opportunity for such perfect revenge that he spontaneously smiled.

"Well, if it isn’t my old childhood friend. My faithless friend." Orpheus pushed Violante’s Bluejay book under the parchment on which he was writing.

Ironstone ducked behind the inkwell in fear. Fear. Not necessarily a bad feeling.

Sometimes it could be very stimulating.

"I suppose you’re here to steal a few more books from me?" he went on. "That won’t do the Bluejay any good. The words have been read, and they’ll pursue him. That’s the price you pay for making a story your own. But how about you? Have you seen your daughter recently?"

Dustfinger’s expression gave nothing away. He really didn’t know yet! Ah, love.

What a perfect tool of revenge. Even the fearless heart that Dustfinger had brought back from the dead was powerless against it.

"You really should go to her. She’s sobbing in the most heartrending way, tearing her beautiful hair."

The look in his eyes! Got you, thought Orpheus. Got you both on the hook now, you and the Bluejay.

"My black dog is guarding your daughter," he went on, and every word tasted as good as spiced wine. "I expect she’s terribly afraid. But I’ve ordered my dog not to feast on her sweet flesh and soul . . . just yet."

There so fear could sting Dustfinger after all. His unscarred face turned pale. He stared at Orpheus’s shadow, but the NightMare did not emerge from it. The NightMare was outside the cage where Brianna sat weeping and calling for her father.

"I’ll kill you if it so much as touches her. I don’t know much about killing, but for you I’d learn!" Dustfinger’s face seemed so much more vulnerable without the scars.

His clothes and hair were covered with fiery sparks.

Orpheus had to admit it the Fire-Dancer was still his favorite character. Whatever Dustfinger did to him, however often he betrayed him, it didn’t change that. His heart loved him like a dog. All the more reason to remove him from this story once and for all — although it was still a shame. Orpheus could hardly believe he had come here only to protect the BluejaY. Such high-minded nobility didn’t suit him at all. No, it was time the Fire-Dancer returned to playing a part that was more like himself.

"You can ransom your daughter!" Orpheus let every word melt on his tongue.

Oh, sweet revenge. The marten on Dustfinger’s shoulder bared its teeth. Nasty brute.

Dustfinger stroked its brown coat. "How?"

Orpheus rose to his feet. "Well . . . first by putting out the lights you’ve so skillfully brought to this castle. At once."

The sparks on the walls flared up as if reaching out to burn him, but then they died down. Only those on Dustfinger’s hair and clothes still shone. Yes. What a terrible weapon love could be. Was any knife sharper? Time to thrust it even deeper into his faithless heart.

"Your daughter is crying her eyes out in the same cage that held the Bluejay,"

Orpheus went on. "Of course she looks much more beautiful in there, with that fiery hair. Like a precious bird. . . ."

The sparks swirled around Dustfinger like a red mist.

"Bring us the bird who really belongs in that cage. Bring us the Bluejay, and your lovely daughter is free. But if you don’t bring him, I’ll feed my black dog on her flesh and her soul. Don’t look at me like that! As far as I’m aware you’ve played the part of traitor once already. I wanted to write you a better part, but you wouldn’t hear of it!"

Dustfinger said nothing, just looked at him.

"You stole the book from me!" Orpheus’s voice almost failed him, the words still tasted so bitter. "You ranged yourself on the bookbinder’s side, although he snatched you out of your own story, instead of backing me, the man who brought you home!

That was cruel, very cruel." Tears rose to his eyes. "What did you think—that I’d just accept such treachery? No, my plan was to send you back to the dead without a soul, hollow as an insect sucked dry, but I like this revenge even better. I’ll make you a traitor again. How that will pierce the bookbinder’s noble heart!"

The flames were leaping from the walls again. They licked up from the floor, scorching Orpheus’s boots. Ironstone moaned with fear and buried his head in his glass arms. Dustfinger’s anger showed in the flames, burning on his face, raining down from the ceiling in sparks.

"Keep your fire away from me!" Orpheus cried. "I’m the only one who can command the Night-Mare, and your daughter will be the first it eats when it next feels hungry.

Which will be soon. I want a trail of fire laid to wherever the Bluejay is hiding, and I’ll be the man who shows it to the Adderhead, understand?"

The flames on the walls went out for the second time. Even the candles on the desk burned out, and all was dark in Orpheus’s room. Only Dustfinger himself was still enveloped in sparks, as if the fire were in him.

Why did the look in his eyes make Orpheus feel such shame? Why did his heart still feel love? He closed his eyes, and when he opened them again Dustfinger was gone.

As Orpheus stepped out of the door the guards who were supposed to be keeping watch outside his room came stumbling along the corridor, their faces twisted with fear. "The Bluejay was here!" they stammered. "He was all made of fire, and then he suddenly dissolved into smoke. Thumbling has gone to tell the Adderhead."

Idiots. He’d feed them all to the Night-Mare.

Don’t lose your temper, he told himself. You’ll soon bring the Adderhead the real Bluejay. And your Night-Mare will eat the Fire-Dancer, too.

"Tell the Silver Prince to send some men to the courtyard under my window," he snarled at the guards. "They’ll find enough fairies’ nests there to fill a tub for him with their blood."

Then he went back to his room and read the nests into the trees. But he saw Dustfinger’s face through the letters, as if he were living behind them. As if all the words spoke only of him.

CHAPTER 67

THE OTHER NAME

The Castle in the Lake had been built to protect a few unhappy children from the world, but the longer Mo walked in its corridors the more he felt as if it had been waiting for another task to fulfill one day: to drown the Bluejay in his own darkness between its painted walls. Dustfinger’s fiery wolf ran ahead as if it knew the way, and while Mo followed he killed four more soldiers. The castle belonged to the FireDancer and the Bluejay; he read it in their faces, and the anger that Orpheus aroused in him made him strike so often that their blood drenched his black clothes. Black.

Orpheus’s words had turned his heart black, too.

You ought to have asked them which way to go instead of killing them, he thought bitterly as he bent to pass through an arched gateway. A flock of doves fluttered up.

No swifts. Not one. Where was Resa? Well, where did he suppose? In the Adderhead’s bedchamber, searching for the Book he had once bound to save her. A swift could fly fast, very fast, and his own steps were heavy as lead from the words Orpheus had written,

There. Was that the tower into which the Adderhead had retreated? It was as Dustfinger had described it. Two more soldiers . . . they staggered back in horror when they saw him. Kill them quickly, Mo, before they scream. Blood. Blood as red as fire. Hadn’t red once been his favorite color? Now the sight of it made him feel ill.