Inkdeath (Inkworld 3)

The wind ruffled the surface of the lake. Violante’s soldiers marched up and down on the bridge, and Dustfinger thought he could hear their mistress’s restless footsteps up here on the battlements. Violante’s footsteps -—and the scratching of Balbulus’s pen.

Silvertongue looked at him. "Show me Resa. The way you conjured up Violante’s mother and her sisters out of the fire."

Dustfinger hesitated.

"Come on," said Silvertongue. "I know you’re almost as familiar with her face as I am."

I’ve told Mo everything. That was what Resa had whispered to him in the dungeons of the Castle of Night. Obviously, she had not been lying. Of course not, Dustfinger told himself. She can’t tell a lie any more than the man she loves can.

He traced a figure in the night and made the flames paint it.

Silvertongue instinctively put out his hand, but snatched his fingers away when the fire stung them.

"What about Meggie?" Love was written all over his face. No, he hadn’t changed, whatever anyone said. He was like an open book, with his burning heart and a voice that could conjure up whatever he wanted —just as Dustfinger could conjure up images with fire.

The flames painted Meggie in the night, filling her with warm life. It looked so real that her father turned away abruptly, because his hands wanted to reach into the fire again.

"Your turn now." Dustfinger left the fiery figure standing behind the battlements.

"Mine?"

"Yes, tell me about Roxane. Live up to your name, Silvertongue."

The Bluejay smiled and leaned back against the stones. "Roxane? That’s easy," he said softly. "Fenoglio has written wonderful things about her."

When he began to speak, his voice took hold of Dustfinger like a hand touching his heart. He felt the words on his skin as if they were Roxane’s hands. "Dustfinger had never seen a more beautiful woman before. Her hair was as black as the night that he loved. Her eyes were the darkness under the trees, ravens feathers, and the sooty breath of the fire. Her skin reminded him of moonlight on the wings of the fairies Dustfinger closed his eyes and could hear Roxane breathing beside him. He wanted Silvertongue to go on and on until the words became flesh and blood, but Fenoglio’s words soon came to an end, and Roxane was gone.

"And Brianna?" Silvertongue spoke her name, and Dustfinger could already see his daughter standing there in the night, turning her face away as she usually did when he came close to her. "Your daughter is here, but you hardly dare look at her. Shall I show you Brianna, too?"

"Yes," said Dustfinger softly, "show me Brianna."

Silvertongue cleared his throat, as if to make sure that his voice was at its full strength. "There’s nothing written about your daughter in Fenoglio’s book, except for her name and a few words about the small child that she isn’t anymore. So I can only say what everyone can see about her."

Dustfinger’s heart contracted, as if afraid of the words that were coming. His daughter, his daughter who was a stranger to him.

"Brianna has inherited her mother’s beauty, but everyone who sets eyes on her thinks of you, too." Silvertongue spoke the words carefully, as if plucking every one of them out of the night, assembling Brianna’s face out of the stars. "There’s fire in her hair and in her heart, and when she looks in the mirror she thinks of her father. . .

And bears him a grudge for coming back from the dead without bringing Cosimo, too, thought Dustfinger. Hush, he wanted to tell Silvertongue, forget my daughter.

Tell me more about Roxane instead. But he kept silent, and Silvertongue went on.

"Brianna is so much more grown-up than Meggie, but sometimes she looks like a lost child whose own beauty seems uncanny to her. She has her mother’s grace and her beautiful voice — even the Prince’s bear listens when Brianna sings — but all her songs are sad, saying that those we love will be lost someday."

Dustfinger felt tears on his face. He had forgotten how they felt, so cool on his skin.

He wiped them away with his hot fingers. But Silvertongue went on, his voice as gentle as if he were speaking of his own daughter. "She looks at you when she thinks you won’t notice. She follows you with her eyes as if looking for herself in your face.

And no doubt she wishes both of us would tell her what it’s like among the dead, and whether we saw Cosimo there."

"I saw two of him," said Dustfinger softly. "I expect she’d gladly exchange me for either of them."

He turned and looked down at the lake.

"What is it?" asked Silvertongue.

Without a word, Dustfinger pointed down. A fiery serpent was crawling through the night. Torches. The waiting was over. The guards on the bridge began to move. One of them ran back to the castle to take the news to Violante.

The Adderhead was coming.

CHAPTER 55

THE WRONG TIME

Dustfinger saw the torches down in the forest. Of course. The Adderhead feared daylight. Damn it all, the ink was too thick again. "Rosenquartz!" Fenoglio wiped the pen on his sleeve and looked around in search of the glass man. Walls made of branches elaborately woven together, the writing-board Doria had made him, his bed of leaves and moss, the candle that Farid kept relighting for him when the wind blew it out but no Rosenquartz.

Very likely he and Jasper hadn’t yet given up hope of finding glass women, even up here. After all, Farid had been fool enough to tell them he’d seen at least two "as pretty as fairies," the idiot had added! Ever since then, the two glass men had been clambering around in the branches so eagerly that it was only a question of time when they would break their silly necks. Stupid creatures.

Well, never mind. Fenoglio dipped his pen back into the thick ink. He must lust make do with things as they were. He loved his new perch for writing, so high that his world was truly at his feet, even if the glass man kept playing truant and it was terribly cold at night. Nowhere before had he felt so strongly that the words were coming to him as if of their own accord.

Yes, he’d write the Bluejay his very best song up here in the crown of a tree. What place could be more suitable? The last picture the flames showed Farid had been reassuring: Dustfinger behind the castle battlements, Mortimer asleep . . . it could only mean that the Adderhead hadn’t reached the castle yet. Well, how could he, Fenoglio? he thought with satisfaction. You broke his coach wheel in the middle of the darkest part of the forest. That should hold up the Silver Prince for at least two days, if not more. Plenty of time for writing, now that the words loved him again.

"Rosenquartz!" If I have to call him once more, thought Fenoglio, I personally am going to throw him out of this tree.

"I’m not hard of hearing, thank you very much. Far from it. I hear better than you."

The glass man emerged from the darkness so suddenly that Fenoglio left a large blot of ink on the paper right beside the Adderhead’s name. Well, he hoped that was a good omen. Rosenquartz dipped a thin twig in the ink and started stirring without a word of apology, without a word to explain where he had been. Concentrate, Fenoglio. Forget the glass man. Write.

And the words came. They came easily. The Adderhead was on his way back to the castle where he had once paid court to Violante’s mother, and his immortality was a burden to him. In his swollen hands he held the White Book that tormented him worse than his own torturers could have done. But soon there would be an end to it, because his daughter was going to hand over the man who had done all this to him.