Inkdeath (Inkworld 3)

Dustfinger couldn’t help smiling, and Farid returned his smile. "Do you. . . do you have to go away again?" He looked as anxious as if he feared the White Women were already waiting.

"No," said Dustfinger, smiling again. "No, not for a while, I think."

Farid. He’d ask the fire to write that name in his heart as well. Roxane. Brianna.

Farid. And Gwin, of course.

CHAPTER 80

OMBRA

When the Black Prince took the children back to Ombra, snow lay on the battlements above the city wall, but the women threw flowers they had made out of scraps of fabric cut from old clothes. The lion emblem waved from the city towers again, but now his paw was laid on a book with blank pages, and his mane was made of fire.

The Milksop had gone. He had fled from the giant, not to Ombra, but straight to the Castle of Night and his sister’s arms, and Violante had returned to take possession of the city and prepare it for the return of its children.

Meggie was standing with Elinor, Darius, and Fenoglio in the square outside the castle gates as the mothers hugged their Sons and daughters, and Violante, speaking from the battlements, thanked the Black Prince and the Bluejay for saving them.

"You know what, Meggie?" Fenoglio whispered to her, as Violante had provisions from the castle kitchens distributed to the women. "Maybe Her Ugliness will fall in love with the Black Prince someday. After all, he was the Bluejay before your father took the part, and Violante was more in love with the role than the man anyway!"

Oh, Fenoglio! He was just the same as ever. Although the giant had gone back to his mountains, he had completely restored the old man’s self-confidence.

The Bluejay had not come to Ombra. Mo and Resa had stayed behind at the farm where they had once lived. "Let the Bluejay go back to where he came from," he had told the Prince. "Into the strolling players’ songs." They were singing them everywhere already: how the Jay and the Fire-Dancer, all by themselves, had defeated the Adderhead and the Piper with all their men. . . .

"Please, Battista," Mo had said, "why don’t you, at least, write a song telling the true story? About the people who helped the Jay and the Fire-Dancer. About the swift and the boy!"

Battista had promised Mo to write a song like that, but Fenoglio only shook his head.

"No one will sing it, Meggie. People don’t like their heroes to need help, particularly not from women and children."

No doubt he was right. Perhaps that meant Violante would have a hard time on the throne of Ombra, although all its people were cheering her today. Jacopo stood beside his mother. He looked more like a small copy of his father every day, but all the same he still reminded Meggie even more of his sinister grandfather. She shuddered to think how ready Jacopo had been to deliver the Adderhead up to Death even though that had been the saving of Mo.

Another widow now ruled the country on the far side of the forest, and she, too, had a son and was taking care of the throne for him. Meggie knew that Violante expected war, but no one wanted to think of that today. This day belonged to the children who had come home. Not one of them was missing, and the strolling players sang about Farid’s fire, the tree full of nests, and the giant who had so mysteriously come out of the mountains at just the right moment.

"I’ll miss him," Elinor had whispered as he disappeared among the trees, and Meggie felt the same. She would never forget how the Inkworld was reflected on his skin, or how light-footed he was when he strode away, so gentle in such a big body.

"Meggie!" Farid made his way through the women and children. "Where’s Silvertongue?"

"With my mother," she replied—and was surprised to find that her heart beat no faster than usual at the sight of him. When had that changed?

Farid frowned. "Yes, yes," he said, "and Dustfinger’s with his minstrel woman again.

He kisses her so often you might think her lips tasted of honey."

Oh dear. Farid was still jealous of Roxane.

"I think I’ll go away for a while," he said.

"Go away? Whereto?"

Behind Meggie, Elinor and Fenoglio began arguing over something Elinor didn’t like about the look of the castle. Those two loved arguing with each other, and they had plenty of opportunity for arguments because they were neighbors now. The bag in which Elinor had packed all kinds of things that might come in useful in the Inkworld, including her silver cutlery, was still standing in her house in the other world ("Well, I was very excited, it’s easy to forget such things then! "), but fortunately she had been wearing the Loredan family jewels when Darius read them both over, and Rosenquartz had sold them for her so cleverly ("Meggie, you’ve no idea what a shrewd businessman that glass man is!") that now she was the proud possessor of a house in the street where Minerva lived.

"Where to?" Farid made a fiery flower grow between his fingers and placed it on Meggie’s dress. "Oh, I think I’ll just stroll from village to village the way Dustfinger used to."

Meggie looked at the burning flower. The flames faded like real petals, and only a tiny spot of ash was left on her dress. Farid. His mere name used to quicken her pulse, but now she hardly listened as he told her about his plans, all the marketplaces where he would put on a show, the mountain villages, the far side of the Wayless Wood. Her heart leaped only when she suddenly saw the Strong Man standing there with the women. A few of the children had climbed onto his shoulders, just as they often used to in the cave, but she couldn’t see the face she was looking for beside him. Disappointed, she let her eyes wander on, and blushed when Doria was suddenly standing there in front of her. Farid abruptly fell silent, and looked at the other boy in the same way as he so often looked at Roxane.

The scar on Doria’s forehead was as long as Meggie’s middle finger. "A blow with a spiked mace, not particularly well aimed" Roxane had said. "Head wounds bleed a lot, so they probably thought he was dead." Roxane had nursed him for many nights on end, but Fenoglio’s opinion was still that Doria was alive thanks only to the story he had written long ago about the boy’s future. "And anyway, even if you want to believe it was Roxane who made him better, then who made up Roxane, may I ask?"

He was certainly his old self again.

"Doria! How are you?" Meggie involuntarily put out her hand and caressed the scar on his forehead. Farid gave her a strange look. "Fine. My head’s as good as new."

Doria brought something out from behind his back. "Is this what they’re like?"

Meggie stared at the tiny wooden airplane he had made.

"That’s how you described them, isn’t it? The flying machines."

"But you were unconscious!"

He smiled and put his hand to his head. "The words are in here, all the same. But I don’t know how the music thing is supposed to work. You know, the little box that plays music."

Meggie had to smile. "Oh yes, a radio. That wouldn’t be any good here. I don’t know just how to explain it to you. . . ."

Farid was still looking at her. Then he abruptly took her hand. "Excuse us," he told Doria, and led Meggie into the nearest doorway. "Does Silvertongue know how you look at him?"

"Look at who?"