He never used a single word that couldn’t be found in Inhheart, for he was firmly convinced that only words from Fenoglio’s story could learn to breathe in this world.
Others were just ink on paper.
"‘Fenoglio,’ I ask, ‘are the White Women only servants? Orpheus went on, as Ironstone hung on every word from his soft—too soft—lips. "‘Do the dead stay with them, or do the White Women take them somewhere else?’ ‘I expect so,’ the old fool replies. ‘I once told Minerva’s children about a castle made of bones to comfort them for Cloud-Dancer’s death, but I was only talking off the cuff.’ Off the cuff! Huh!"
"The old fool!" repeated Ironstone like an echo, but in his reedy, glass man’s voice it was not a very impressive sound. Orpheus turned and went back to his desk. "With all your roaming around, I hope at least you didn’t forget to tell Mortimer I want to talk to him? Or was he too busy playing the hero?"
"He says there’s nothing to talk about. He says he doesn’t know anything about the White Women except what everyone knows." "Oh wonderful!" Orpheus reached for one of the pens that Jasper had sharpened so laboriously and snapped it in two. "Did you at least ask whether he still sees them sometimes?"
"I’m sure he does." Jasper’s voice was as delicate as his limbs. "Once the White Women have touched someone they never let him go. Or so the moss-women say.
"I know that!" said Orpheus impatiently. "I tried questioning a moss-woman about that rumor, but the nasty creature wouldn’t talk about it. She just stared at me with her mousy eyes and said I eat too much rich food and drink too much wine!"
"They talk to the fairies," Jasper said. ‘And fairies talk to glass men. Although not all of them," he added with a sidelong glance at his brother. "I’ve heard that the moss-women tell another tale of the White Women, too. They say they can be summoned by anyone whose heart they’ve already touched with their cold fingers."
"Oh, indeed?" Orpheus looked thoughtfully at the glass man. "I hadn’t heard that one before."
"And it’s not true! I’ve tried summoning them!" said Farid. "Again and again!"
"You! How often do I have to explain that you died much too quickly?" Orpheus snapped contemptuously at him. "You were in a great hurry to die and just as great a hurry to come back.
"What’s more, you’re such a poor catch that I’d assume they don’t even remember you! No, you’re not the person to do it." He went to the window again. "Go and make me some tea!" he told Farid without turning. "I have to think."
"What kind of tea?"
Farid put Jasper on his shoulder. He took the little man with him whenever he could, to keep him safe from his big brother. Sometimes, when Orpheus didn’t need either of them because he was taking his pleasure with one of the maids, or seeing his tailor for yet another fitting of some new clothes — which could last hours — Farid took Jasper with him to Seamstresses’ Alley, where the glass women helped to thread the dressmakers’ needles, tread seams smooth with their tiny feet, and tack lace to costly silk. For Farid had now also learned that glass men don’t just bleed, they fall in love, too, and Jasper was head over heels in love with a girl who had pale yellow limbs.
He was only too fond of watching her in secret through her mistress’s workshop window.
"What kind of tea? How should I know? Something good for a stomachache," replied Orpheus crossly. "I’ve had a pain in my belly all day as if there were stag beetles in it. How am I supposed to get anything sensible down on paper in that state?"