Inkdeath (Inkworld 3)

"But they will throw one sometime, and then what?" asked Farid as he carefully sprinkled a little ash on the tree’s wooden skin. There wasn’t much left, even though he gathered it up again meticulously every time he’d used it. "What will the giant do when he wakes up?"

"How would I know?" grumbled Fenoglio, casting a slightly worried look downward.

"I just hope poor Roxane doesn’t have to spend the rest of her life singing him to sleep."

The Black Prince came over to them, too. Battista had to support him. He sat down beside Meggie without a word. The fire was sleepy today. However hard Farid enticed and flattered it, it seemed forever before flames rose from the ashes. The giant began humming to himself in his sleep. Jink jumped up onto Farid’s knees, a dead bird in his mouth, and suddenly the pictures came: Dustfinger in a courtyard, surrounded by large cages. There was a girl in one of them, weeping. Brianna. A black figure stood between her and her father.

"Night-Mare!" whispered Battista. Meggie looked at him in alarm. The picture dissolved into grayish smoke, and another appeared in the heart of the flames. Farid took Meggie’s hand, and Battista uttered a soft curse. Mo. He was chained to a table.

The Piper was with him. And the Adderhead, his swollen face looking even more terrible than Meggie had seen it in her worst dreams. Leather and blank sheets of paper lay on the table.

"He’s binding him another White Book!" whispered Meggie. "What does that mean?" In alarm, she looked at Fenoglio.

"Meggie!" Farid drew her attention to the fire again.

Letters were rising from the flames, burning letters that formed into words.

"What the devil is that!" Fenoglio uttered. "Who wrote that?"

The words blew away and went out among the branches before anyone could read them. But the fire gave Fenoglio the answer to his question. A round, pale face appeared in the flames, its circular glasses looking like a second pair of eyes.

"Orpheus!" Farid whispered.

The flames burned low, slipping back into the ashes as if returning to their nest, but a few fiery words still drifted through the air. Bluejay . . . fear. . . broken . . . die .

"What does that mean?" asked the Black Prince.

"It’s a long story, Prince," Fenoglio replied wearily. "And I’m afraid the wrong man has written the end of it."

CHAPTER 71

THE BOOKBINDER

Fold. Cut. The paper was good, better than last time. Mo’s fingertips felt the fibers on its pale white surface, ran along the edges in search of memories. And they came, filling his heart and mind with a thousand images, a thousand and more forgotten days. The smell of the glue took him back to all the places where he had been alone with a sick book, and the familiar gestures made him feel his old satisfaction in giving new life and beauty to a book, saving it from time’s sharp teeth, at least for a while. He’d forgotten the peace that came when his hands were doing their work.

Fold, cut, pull a thread through the paper. Mortimer was back again: Mortimer the bookbinder, for whom a knife didn’t have to be sharp because a sharp blade killed better, and who wasn’t threatened by the words, because he was only making them new clothes.

"You’re taking your time, Bluejay."

The Piper’s voice brought him back to the Hall of a Thousand Windows.

Don’t let it happen, Mortimer, he told himself. Simply imagine that the silver-nosed man is still in his own book, is nothing but a voice coming out of the letters on the page. The Bluejay isn’t here. Orpheus’s words must look for him somewhere else.

"You know you’re going to die when you’ve finished it. That’s what makes you so slow, am I correct?" The Piper struck him so hard in the back with his gloved fist that Mo almost cut his own hands, and the Bluejay surfaced for a moment, thinking what it would be like to plunge the blade that cut the paper into the Piper’s breast.

Mo forced himself to put the knife aside and picked up another sheet of paper, seeking peace in gluing all that whiteness together. The Piper was right. He was taking his time, not because he was afraid of dying but because this book must never be finished, and the only reason for every move he made was to bring back Mortimer Folchart, the bookbinder who could not be bound by Orpheus’s words. Mo hardly felt them anymore. All the despair that had seeped into his heart in that dark cell, all the rage and hopelessness, had faded as if his hands had washed them out of his heart.

But what would happen if Dustfinger and Resa didn’t find the other White Book?

Suppose the Night-Mare devoured Brianna and her father? Would he stand in this hall forever, then, binding blank pages? Not forever, Mo. You’re not immortal.

Luckily. The Piper would kill him. He’d been waiting to do it ever since they first met in the Castle of Night. And, of course, the strolling players would sing about the death of the Bluejay, not Mortimer Folchart. But what would become of Resa and the unborn child?

And what about Meggie? Don’t think, Mortimer, he told himself.

Cut, fold, stitch, win yourself some time, even if you don’t yet know what for. When you’re dead Resa can fly away and find Meggie.

Meggie. . .

Please, his heart pleaded with the White Women, let my daughter live! I will go with you, but leave Meggie here. Her life is only just beginning, though she may not know yet which world she wants to live it in.

Cutting, folding, stitching—he thought he saw Meggie’s face on the blank paper. He almost felt her beside him as he had in the Old Chamber in the Castle of Night, the room where Violante’s mother had lived. Violante. . . they’d thrown her into one of the cells. Mo knew exactly what would frighten her most down there: She would be afraid of the darkness taking what little vision she had from her. The Adder’s daughter still moved him, and he would gladly have helped her, but the Bluejay must sleep.

Four candles had been lit for him. They didn’t give much light, but they were better than nothing. The chains didn’t make working any easier, either. Every time he moved, their clinking reminded him that he wasn’t in his workshop in Elinor’s garden.

The door opened.

"There you are!" Orpheus’s voice echoed through the empty hall. "This role suits you much better! What made that old fool Fenoglio think of turning a bookbinder into a robber?"

He stopped in front of Mo with a triumphant smile, just too far away for the knife to reach him. Yes, Orpheus would think of that kind of thing. As usual, his breath smelled sweetish.

"You ought to have known Dustfinger would betray yoU sometime. He betrays everyone and believe me, I know what I’m talking about. It’s the part he plays best.

But presumably you couldn’t pick and choose who’d help you."

Mo picked up the leather intended for the cover. It was red, like the cover of the first book.

"Ah, so you’re not talking to me anymore! Well, I can understand that." Orpheus had never looked happier.

"Leave him to work, Four-Eyes! Or do you want me telling the Adderhead that he has to live in his itching skin a little longer, just because you felt like a nice chat?"

The Piper’s voice sounded even more strained than usual. Orpheus wasn’t making himself many friends.

"Don’t forget, your master will soon be rid of that skin, Piper, and he owes it all to me!" he replied in a supercilious tone. "Your powers of persuasion haven’t impressed our bookbinding friend much, if I remember rightly."