Inkdeath

"It’s the castle where her mother grew up. Dustfinger knows it." Farid took a bag from his belt and wiped some soot off the leather. Then he looked at Meggie. "We made spiders and Wolves out of fire to protect your father!" There was no mistaking the pride in his voice.



"But all the same Violante thought he wasn’t safe in the castle." Resa’s voice sounded accusing: You can’t protect him; in fact, none of you can protect him. He’s on his own.



"The Castle in the Lake." The Black Prince spoke its name as if he did not particularly like Violante’s idea, either. "There are many songs about that castle."



"Dark songs," added Gecko. The magpie had flown to him and was perching on his shoulder. It was a skinny bird, and it stared at Meggie as if it would like to peck out her eyes.



"What kind of songs?" Resa’s voice was husky with fear.



"Oh, ghost stories, that’s all. Fanciful nonsense!" Fenoglio pushed past Resa.



Despina was clinging to his hand. "The Castle in the Lake was abandoned long ago, so people fill it with stories, but that’s all they are.



"How reassuring!" The glance that Elinor cast Fenoglio made his face turn red.



He was in a gloomy mood. Since their arrival at the cave he had been complaining nonstop about the cold, the crying children, or the stench of the bear. Most of the time he sat behind a wall of stones he had built in the darkest corner of the cave, quarreling with Rosenquartz. Only Jvo and Despina could get a smile out of him and Darius, who had joined the old man as soon as they had arrived at the cave and, as he helped Fenoglio to build his wall, started timidly asking him about the world he had created. Where do the giants live? Do water-nymphs live longer than human beings?



What kind of country lies beyond the mountains? Darius obviously asked the right questions, for Fenoglio didn’t lose patience with him as he had with Orpheus.



The Castle in the Lake.



Fenoglio shook his head when Meggie went to him to find out more about the place to which Her Ugliness was taking her father. "It wasn’t among the main scenes of the story" was all he would say, grumpily. "One of many settings. Just scenery! Read my book if you want to know more about it — if Dustfinger ever lets it out of his hands again, that is! If you ask me, he ought really to have given itto me, although we still don’t seem to be on speaking terms. After all, I wrote it! But there we are. At least Orpheus doesn’t have it anymore.



The book.



In fact, Dustfinger had passed on Inkheart long ago, but Meggie kept that knowledge to herself, for Farid had asked her to.



He had handed it over to her mother as swiftly as if Basta might emerge behind him to steal it, just as he had back in the other world. "Dustfinger says it will be safest with you, because you know how powerful the words in it are," he had murmured.



"The Black Prince doesn’t understand that. But keep it hidden and let nobody know you have it! Orpheus mustn’t get it back. Dustfinger is fairly sure, though, that he won’t look for it in your hands."



Resa had taken the book only with some reluctance, and finally she hid it in the place where she slept. Meggie’s heart beat faster as she took it out from under the blanket.



She hadn’t held Fenoglio’s book in her hands since Mortola had given it to her in Capricorn’s arena to read the Shadow into being. It was a strange feeling to open it now that she was in the world it described, and for a moment Meggie feared the pages might suck in everything around her. The rocky ground where she was sitting, the blanket under which her mother slept, the white ice-moth that had lost its way in the cave, the children laughing as they ran after it. . . had all that really come into existence between these covers? The book seemed so meaningless compared to the marvels it described, just a few hundred printed pages and a dozen pictures not half as good as those that Balbulus painted, all in a silvery-green linen binding. Yet it wouldn’t have surprised Meggie to find her own name on the pages, or the names of her mother, Farid, or Mo although, no, her father bore another name in this world.



Meggie had never had the chance to read Fenoglio’s whole story. Where was she to begin now? Was there a picture of the Castle in the Lake? She was quickly leafing through the pages when she suddenly heard Farid ‘s voice behind her.



"Meggie?"



She closed the book guiltily, as if every word in it were a secret. How stupid of her.



This book didn’t know anything about all her fears, it knew nothing of the Bluejay, nor even of Farid . . .



She didn’t think of him now as often as she used to. It was almost as if, with Dustfinger’s return, the chapter about Farid and herself had ended, and the story was beginning again, extinguishing part of the tale it had told before with every new word.



"Dustfinger gave me something else to bring back here." Farid glanced at the book on her lap as if it were a snake. But then he kneeled down beside her and took from his belt the soot-blackened bag that his fingers had been caressing while he delivered his news to the Prince.



"He gave it to me for Roxane," said Farid quietly as he sprinkled a fine circle of ashes on the rocky ground. "But you looked really upset, so.



He didn’t finish his sentence. Instead he whispered words that only he and Dustfinger understood—and the fire suddenly licked up from the ashes as if it had been sleeping there. Farid lured it out, praised and enticed it, until it burned with such heat that the heart of the flames became white as paper, and a picture appeared, difficult to make out at first, then more and more distinct.



Hills, densely wooded . . . soldiers on a narrow path, many soldiers. . . two women riding among them. Meggie recognized Brianna at once by her hair. The woman in front of her must be Her Ugliness, and there with Dustfinger beside him——rode Mo. Meggie instinctively put her hand out to him, but Farid held her fingers fast.



"He has blood on his face," she whispered.



"The Piper." Farid spoke to the flames again, and the picture spread out, showing the path turning toward mountains that Meggie had never seen before, much higher than the hills around Ombra. Snow lay on the way ahead, as it did on the slopes in the distance, and Meggie saw Mo breathing into his cold hands. He looked so strange in the fur-trimmed cloak he wore—like a character in a fairy tale. He is a character in a fairy tale, Meggie, a voice inside her whispered. The Bluejay. . . was he still her father, too? Had Mo ever looked so serious? Her Ugliness turned to him, of course it was Her Ugliness, who else? They were talking, but the fire showed only silent images.



"You see? He’s all right. Thanks to Dustfinger." Farid stared into the fire with longing, as if that could take him back to Dustfinger’s side. Then he heaved a sigh and blew gently on the flames until they turned dark red as if blushing at the pet names he soothed them with.



"Will you follow him?"



Farid shook his head. "Dustfinger wants me to look after Roxane." Meggie could sense his bitterness for herself. "What will you do?" He looked at her with the question in his eyes.



"What am I supposed to do?"



Whisper words, that’s all I can do, she added in her mind. All the words the minstrels sing about the Bluejay: how he calms the waves with his voice, how he is invulnerable and fast as the wind, how the fairies protect him and the White Women watch over his sleep. Words. They were the only means she had of protecting Mo, and she whispered them day and night, in every private moment, sending them after him like the crows that the Black Prince had sent to Ombra.