“What am I doing here?” murmured Fenoglio, looking around the high-ceilinged, narrow room.

He had still been in bed (in much more comfort than at Minerva’s house) when Her Ugliness’s messenger had appeared. Violante sent her apologies, said the man, and since he was better with words than anyone else she knew, she asked him to talk to Roxane on her behalf. That was how the powerful acted – offloading the less pleasant tasks in life onto other people. But on the other hand .. he had always hoped to meet Dustfinger’s wife someday. Was she really as beautiful as his description of her?

With a sigh, he dropped into the armchair generally used by one of Cosimo’s administrators.

Since Cosimo’s return, so many petitioners had flocked to the castle that in the future they were going to be allowed to come and put their cases on only two days of the week. Their prince had weightier matters on his mind just now than the troubles of a farmer whose neighbor had stolen his pig, a cobbler who had bought poor quality leather from a dealer, or a seamstress whose husband beat her every night when he came home drunk. Of course, there was a judge in every town of any size to settle such quarrels, but most of them had a poor reputation. Folk said, on both sides of the Wayless Wood, that you’d get your rights only if you filled the judges’ pockets with gold. So those who had no gold went up to the castle to appeal to their angel-faced prince, without realizing that he had more than enough to do preparing for his war.

When Roxane entered the room she had two children with her: a girl of about five and an older boy, probably Brianna’s brother, Jehan – the lad who had the dubious honor of playing with Jacopo now and then. She frowned as she scrutinized the tapestries on the walls celebrating the Laughing Prince’s exploits in his youth. Unicorns, dragons, White Stags .. Clearly nothing had been safe from his royal spear.

“Why don’t we just go into the garden?” suggested Fenoglio, noticing her expression of disapproval and quickly rising from the princely chair. If anything, she was even more beautiful than his description of her. But after all, he had sought the most wonderful of words for her when he wrote the scene in Inkheart where Dustfinger saw her for the first time. Yet all at once, now that she so suddenly stood before him in the flesh, he felt as lovelorn as a silly boy. Oh, for goodness’ sake, Fenoglio! he reproached himself. You made her up, and now you’re staring at her as if this was the first time in your life you’d ever seen a woman! Worst of all, Roxane seemed to notice it.

“Yes, let’s go into the garden! I’ve heard a great deal about it, but I’ve never seen it,” she said with a smile that cast Fenoglio into total confusion. “But first, please tell me why you want to speak to me. Your letter said only that it was about Brianna.”

Why he wanted to speak to her? Huh! He cursed Violante’s jealousy, Cosimo’s faithless heart, and himself, too. “Let’s go into the garden first,” he said. Perhaps it would be easier to tell her what Her Ugliness had instructed him to say in the open air. But of course it was not.

The boy set off in search of Jacopo as soon as they were outside, but the girl stayed with Roxane, clinging to her hand as she went from plant to plant – and Fenoglio found he couldn’t utter a word.

“I know why I was summoned,” said Roxane, just as he was trying for the tenth time to find the right words. “Brianna didn’t tell me herself, she’d never do that. But the maid who takes Cosimo his breakfast every morning often comes to me for advice about her sick mother, and she’s told me that Brianna seldom leaves his room. Not even at night.”

“Yes. Yes, that’s it .. Violante is concerned. And she hopes that you .. ” Oh, damn it, how his voice was faltering! He didn’t know how to go on. This wretched confusion. His story clearly had too many characters in it. How was he to foresee everything they’d think of? It was downright impossible, particularly when a young girl’s heart was involved. No one could expect him to understand anything about that.

Roxane scrutinized his face as if she were still waiting for the end of his sentence. You stupid old fool, surely you’re not going to blush, Fenoglio thought – and felt the blood shoot into his wrinkled face as if to drive age out of it.

“The boy has told me about you,” said Roxane. “Farid. He’s in love with the girl who’s staying with you – Meggie, isn’t that right? When he speaks her name he looks as if he had a pearl in his mouth.”

“Yes, I’m beginning to think that Meggie likes him, too.”

What exactly, wondered Fenoglio uneasily, has the boy been saying about me? Telling her I made her up, and the man she loves, too – only to kill him off again?

The little girl was still clutching Roxane’s hand. With a smile, she put a flower in the child’s long, dark hair. You know something, Fenoglio? he thought. All this is nonsense! What makes you think you invented her? She must always have been here, long before you wrote your story. A woman like her can’t possibly be made of nothing but words! You’ve been wrong all this time! They were here already, all of them: Dustfinger and Capricorn, Basta and Roxane, Minerva, Violante, the Adderhead . . you merely wrote their story, but they didn’t like it, and now they’re writing it for themselves.

The little girl felt the flower with her fingers and smiled.

“Is she Dustfinger’s daughter?” asked Fenoglio.

Roxane looked at him in surprise. “No,” she said. “Our second daughter died long ago. But how do you come to know Dustfinger? He’s never mentioned you to me.” You fool, Fenoglio, you stupid fool.

“Oh, I certainly know Dustfinger!” he stammered. “In fact, I know him very well. I often visit the strolling players, you see, when they pitch their tents here outside the city wall. That’s where –

er – where I met him.”

“Really?” Roxane ran her fingers over a plant with feathery leaves. “I didn’t know he’d been back there already.” Her face thoughtful, she moved on to another flower bed. “Wild mallow. I grow it in my own fields. Isn’t it beautiful? So useful, too. . ” She did not look at Fenoglio as she went on.

“Dustfinger has gone. Yet again. All I had was a message to say he’s following men of the Adderhead’s troops who have kidnapped some of the strolling players. Her mother,” she added, putting her arm around the girl, “is one of them. And the Black Prince, a good friend of his.”

They’d captured the Prince, too? Fenoglio tried to hide his alarm. Obviously, matters were even worse than he’d thought and what he was writing down on parchment was still no use.

Roxane felt the seed heads of a lavender bush. Their sweet scent immediately filled the air. “I’m told that you were there when CloudDancer was killed. Did you know his murderer? I heard that it was Basta, one of the fire-raisers from the forest.”

“I’m afraid what you heard was right.” Not a night passed when Fenoglio did not see Basta’s knife flying through the air. It pursued him into all his dreams.

“The boy told Dustfinger that Basta was back. But I hoped he wasn’t telling the truth. I’m anxious” – she spoke so softly that Fenoglio could hardly make out her words – “so anxious that I keep finding myself just standing and staring at the forest, as if he might appear among the trees again at any moment, the way he did on the morning he came back.” She picked a dried lavender head and shook some of the tiny seeds into her hand. “May I take these with me?”