Inkdeath (Inkworld 3)

"Well, you . . ." For the first time Violante’s voice betrayed uncertainty. "He’ll make you well again."

"So?" The Silver Prince was breathing heavily. "You want to see me dead. Don’t deny it. I like that! It shows that my blood flows in your veins. Sometimes I think I really should put you on the throne of Ombra. You’d certainly fill the position better than my silver-powdered brother-in-law."

"Of course I would! I’d send six times as much silver to the Castle of Night, because I wouldn’t be squandering it on banquets and hunting parties. But for that you must leave me the Bluejay — once he’s done what you want."

Impressive. She was actually still making conditions. Oh yes, I like her, thought Orpheus. I like her very much. She just has to have her weakness for lawless bookbinders driven out of her. But then . . . what possibilities!

Obviously, the Adderhead was appreciating his daughter more and more as well. He laughed louder than Orpheus had ever heard him laugh before. "Look at her!" he cried. "Bargaining with me even though she stands there empty-handed! Take her to her room," he ordered one of his soldiers. "But watch her carefully. And send Jacopo to her. A son should be with his mother. You, however," he said, turning to Mortimer, "will finally agree to my demand, or I’ll have my bodyguard torture a yes out of you."

The Piper, aggrieved, lowered his knife when Thumbling stepped out of the darkness. Violante cast him an uneasy glance, and resisted when the soldier dragged her away with him — but Mortimer still remained silent.

"Your Grace!" Orpheus took a respectful step forward (at least, he hoped it looked respectful). "Let me get him to consent!"

A whispered name (for you just have to call the creatures by their right names, like dogs), and the Night-Mare emerged from Orpheus’s shadow.

"Not the Night-Mare!" the Piper said forcefully. "You want to see the Bluejay dead on the spot, like the Fire-Dancer? No." Lie had Mortimer hauled to his feet again.

"Didn’t you hear? I’m dealing with this, Piper." Thumbling took off his black gloves.

Orpheus tasted disappointment like bitter almonds on his tongue. What a chance to show the Adderhead how useful he was! If he’d only had Fenoglio’s book so that he could use it to write the Piper right out of this world. And that Thumbling fellow, too.

"My lord! Please, listen to me!" He stepped in front of the Adderhead. "May I ask for the answer to an additional question to be extracted from the prisoner in the course of what, I’m sure, he will find a rather uncomfortable process? You’ll remember the book I told you about, the book that can change this world in any way you like!

Please get him to say where it is!"

But the Adderhead just turned his back. "Later," he said, and dropped back, with another groan, into the chair where the shadows hid him. "We’re talking about only one book now, a book with white pages. You can start, Thumbling," said his gasping voice in the darkness. "But take care of his hands."

When Orpheus felt the sudden chill on his face, he thought at first that the night wind was blowing through the black-draped windows. But there they were, standing beside the Bluejay, as white and terrible as they had been in the graveyard of the strolling players. They surrounded Mortimer like flightless angels, their limbs made of mist, their faces white as bleached bone. The Piper stumbled back so hastily that he fell and cut himself on his own knife. Even Thumbling’s face lost its look of indifference. And the soldiers who had been guarding Mortimer flinched back like frightened children.

It couldn’t be true! Why were they protecting him? As thanks to him for tricking them more than once? For stealing Dustfinger away from them? Orpheus felt the Night-Mare cower like a beaten dog. So even the Night-Mare feared them? No. No, for heaven’s sake! This world really must be rewritten. And he was the man to do it.

Yes, indeed. He’d find a way.

What were they whispering?

The pale light spread by the daughters of Death drove away the shadows where the Adderhead was concealed, and Orpheus saw the Silver Prince fighting for breath in his dark corner, putting his shaking hands over his eyes. So he was still afraid of the White Women, even though he had killed so many men in the Castle of Night to prove that he wasn’t. All lies. The Adderhead, in his immortal body, was breathless with fear.

But Mortimer stood among Fenoglio’s angels of death as if they were a part of him—

and smiled.

CHAPTER 60

MOTHER AND SON

Of course the Adderhead had Violante locked in her mother’s former chamber. He knew very well that she would just hear the many lies his late wife had told her all the more clearly there. It couldn’t be true. Her mother had never lied to her. Mother and father had always meant good and bad, truth and lies, love and hate. It had been so simple! But now her father had taken that from her, too. Violante searched inside herself for her pride and the strength she had always preserved, but all she found was an ugly little girl sitting in the dust of her hopes, at the heart of her mother’s shattered image.

She leaned her forehead against the barred door and listened for the Bluejay’s screams, but she heard only the guards talking outside her door. Oh, why hadn’t he said yes? Because he thought she’d still be able to shield him? Thumbling would soon teach him better. She couldn’t help thinking of the minstrel whom her father had had quartered because he had sung for her mother, and the servant who had brought her books and was starved to death in a cage outside her window. She had given him parchment to eat. How could she have promised the Bluejay protection when those who were on her side had always gone to their deaths?

"Thumbling will slice strips off his skin!" Jacopo’s voice hardly reached her. "They say he does it so skillfully that his victims don’t die. He’s said to have practiced on dead bodies!"

"Be quiet!" She felt like slapping his pale face. He was growing more and more like Cosimo every day, although he would so much rather have been like his grandfather.

"You can’t hear anything from here. They’ll take him down to the cellar near the dungeons. I’ve been there. All the instruments are still in place rusty, but they’re still fit for use: chains, knives, screws, iron spikes.

Violante looked at him, and he fell silent. She went to the window, but the cage where they had first imprisoned the Bluejay was empty. Only the Fire-Dancer lay dead outside it. Strange that the ravens hadn’t touched him. As if they were afraid to.

Jacopo took the plate of food that one of the maids had brought him and sulkily picked at it. How old was he now? She couldn’t remember. At least he’d stopped wearing that tin nose since the Piper had made fun of him for it.

"You like him."

"Who?"

"The Bluejay."

"He’s better than any of them." Once again she listened at the door. Why hadn’t he said yes? Then perhaps she might yet have been able to save him.

"If the Bluejay makes another book, will Grandfather still go on smelling so bad? I think he will. I think he’ll just fall down dead someday. He looks dead already, really." How indifferent he sounded. A few months ago Jacopo had still adored her father. Were all children like that? How would she know? She had just one child.