Inkdeath (Inkworld 3)

"Oh, so she’d never steal?" Orpheus was clearly having some difficulty in giving his voice its old velvety sound. "As far as I know she stole your husband from you, didn’t she?"

"Here you are!"

Before Violante could react, Jacopo was standing in front of Orpheus, holding her books. "Which one do you want? She likes reading the thicker book most. But this time you must pay me more than you paid for my own book!"

Violante tried to snatch the books from his hands, but Jacopo was surprisingly strong, and Orpheus hastily opened the door.

"Quick. Take these books to safekeeping!" he ordered the soldier on guard outside.

The man had no difficulty in getting the books away from Jacopo. Orpheus opened them, read a few lines first from one, then from the other — and gave Violante a triumphant smile.

"Yes, exactly the reading matter I need," he said. "You’ll get them back as soon as they’ve served their purpose. But these books," he added to Jacopo, pinching his cheek roughly, "I’m borrowing for free, you greedy son of a dead prince! And we can forget about any payment for your other book, too, or do you want to meet my Night-Mare? I’m sure you’ve heard of it."

Jacopo just stared at him with a mixture of fear and hatred on his thin face.

Orpheus, however, bowed and went out through the doorway. "I really can’t thank you enough, Your Highness," he said by way of farewell. "You have no idea how happy these books make me. Now the Bluejay is certain to give your father the right answer soon. Jacopo was chewing his lip hard as the guard outside shot the bolt again. He always did that when something hadn’t gone the way he wanted. Violante slapped his face so hard that he stumbled against her bed and fell. He began crying without a sound, his eyes fixed on her like a dog that has been punished.

Brianna helped him up and wiped his tears away with her dress.

"What is Four-Eyes going to do with the books?" Violante was shivering. She was shivering all over. She had a new enemy.

"I don’t know," Brianna replied. "All I do know is that my father took one away from him because he had done great harm with it."

Great harm.

Now the Bluejay is certain to give your father the right answer soon.

CHAPTER 61

CLOTHED AND UNCLOTHED

It was easy to fly, so easy. The skill of it came with the body, with every feather and every delicate bone. For the seeds had turned Resa into a bird. The transformation caused painful spasms, which had terrified Lazaro the Strong Man, but she hadn’t turned into a magpie like Mortola. ‘A swift!’ the Strong Man had whispered when she flew to his hand, dizzy to find everything suddenly so much larger.

"Swifts are nice birds, very nice. It suits you." He had very gently stroked her wings with his forefinger, and it seemed so strange that she couldn’t smile at him with her beak. But she could speak in her human voice, which alarmed poor Tullio even more.

Her feathers warmed her, and the guards on the banks of the lake didn’t even look up as she flew over their heads. Obviously, they hadn’t yet found the soldiers the Strong Man had killed. The crests on their gray cloaks reminded Resa of the dungeons of the Castle of Night. Forget them, she thought, as she spread her wings on the wind.

That’s in the past. But perhaps you can still change what’s yet to come. Or was life after all only a tangle of threads spun by fate, and there was no escaping it? Don’t think, Resa, she told herself,fly!

Where was he? Where was Mo?

The Piper has locked him up in a cage. Tullio hadn’t been able to say just where that cage stood. In a courtyard, he had stammered, a courtyard full of painted birds. Resa had heard about the painted walls of the castle. From the outside, however, its walls were almost black, built of the dark stone also found on the banks of the lake. She was glad she didn’t have to cross the bridge, which was swarming with soldiers. It was raining, and the raindrops made endless circles on the water below her. But her body weighed very little, and flying was a wonderful sensation. She saw her reflection underneath her. It shot across the waves like an arrow, and at last the towers rose to meet her, the fortified walls, the slate-gray roofs, and among them courtyards—gaping dark holes in the pattern of the stone. She spotted trees with bare branches, dog runs, a frozen garden, and soldiers everywhere. But cages. . . ?

When she finally found them, at first she saw only Dustfinger, lying where he had been thrown on the gray paving stones like a bundle of old clothes. Oh God. She would never have wanted to see him like that again. There was a child standing beside him, staring at the still body as if waiting for it to move—just as it had done once before, if the songs of the strolling players told the truth. And they do tell the truth, Resa wanted to call down. I’ve felt his warm hands. I’ve seen him smile again and kiss his wife. But when she saw him lying there it was as if he had never moved since he’d died in the mine.

She didn’t see the cages until she dived below the slate rooftops. They were all empty. No trace of Mo. Empty cages and an empty body. She wanted to let herself drop like a stone, hit the paving, and lie there as motionless as Dustfinger.

The child turned. He was the boy she had last seen standing on the battlements in Ombra. Violante’s son. Even Meggie, who would usually take any child on her lap with such tenderness, spoke of him only with dislike. Jacopo. For a moment he stared up at Resa as if he could see the woman under the feathers, but then he bent over the dead man again, touched the rigid face and straightened up when someone called his name. There was no mistaking that strained nasal voice.

The Piper.

Resa flew up to the ridge of a roof.

"Come along, your grandfather wants to see you!" The Piper took the boy by the scruff of his neck and pushed him roughly toward the nearest flight of steps.

"What for?" Jacopo’s voice sounded like a ridiculous echo of his grandfather’s, but it was also the voice of a little boy lost among all the grown-ups, fatherless—and motherless, judging by all Roxane had said about Violante’s lack of love for him.

"What do you think he wants you for? He’s certainly not pining away for your peevish company." The Piper thumped Jacopo on the back with his fist. "He wants to know what your mother says when you’re alone in her room with her."

"She doesn’t talk to me.

"Oh, I don’t like to hear that. What are we to do with you if you're no use as a spy?

Maybe we ought to feed you to the Night-Mare! It's a long time since the creature had anything to eat, and if your grandfather gets his way it won't get to taste the Bluejay in a hurry, either."

Night-Mare.

So Tullio had told the truth. As soon as the voices died away, Resa fluttered down to Dustfinger. But the swift couldn’t weep any more than she could smile. Fly after the Piper, Resa, she told herself as she perched on the stones, wet with rain. Look for Mo. There’s no more you can do for the Fire-Dancer now, any more than you could before. She was only thankful that the Night-Mare hadn’t feasted on him as it had on Snapper. His cheek was so cold when she pressed her feathered head against it.

"How did you come by that pretty dress of feathers Resa?"

The whisper came from nowhere out of the rain, the moist air, the painted stone—but surely not from the cold lips. Yet it was Dustfinger’s voice, husky and soft at the same time, ever familiar. Resa swiftly turned her bird’s head—and heard his quiet laughter.