Inkdeath

34. BURNT WORDS

They were setting off at sunrise. The Piper had accepted Mo's conditions: The children of Ombra would be set free as soon as the Bluejay kept his promise and handed himself over to the Adderhead's daughter. Some of the robbers were going to disguise themselves as women and wait outside the castle with the mothers, and Dustfinger would accompany Mo to Ombra as a fiery warning to the Piper. But the Bluejay would ride into the castle alone.

Don't call him that, Meggie, she told herself.

There were only a few hours now until dawn. The Black Prince was sitting by the fire, wide awake, with Battista and Dustfinger, who didn't appear to need any sleep at all now that he was back from the dead. Farid was sitting beside him, of course and Roxane. But Dustfinger's daughter had moved into Ombra Castle. Violante had taken Brianna back on the morning when the Piper had announced his agreement with the Bluejay.

Mo wasn't sitting by the fire with them. He had gone to lie down and get some sleep, and Resa was with him. How could he sleep tonight? The Strong Man was sitting outside the tent as if he must at least keep watch over the Bluejay.

"You should sleep, too, Meggie," Mo had told her when he saw her sitting a little way from the others under the trees, but Meggie had only shaken her head. It was rainy, and her clothes were as damp and chilly as her hair, but it wasn't much better inside the tents, and she didn't want to lie there with the rain telling her how the Piper would greet her father.

"Meggie?" Doria sat down in the wet grass beside her. His hair was wavy from the rain. "Are you riding to Ombra, too?"

She nodded. Farid glanced at them.

"I'll steal into the castle as soon as your father has ridden through the door, I promise you," said Doria. "And Dustfinger will stay near the castle, too. We'll protect him."

"What are you saying?" Meggie's voice sounded sharper than she had intended. "You can't protect him, not just the two of you! The Piper will kill him. Are you thinking, 'She's only a girl, tell her lies to comfort her?' I was with my father in the Castle of Night. I've faced the Adderhead. They'll kill him!"

Doria did not reply. He stayed silent for a long time, and she felt sorry she'd snapped at him like that. She wanted to say so, but she, too, remained silent, her head bent so that he wouldn't see the tears she'd been holding back for hours. What he'd said had started them flowing. And now he'd be thinking, she's a girl, she cries.

She felt Doria's hand on her hair. He was stroking it as gently as if to wipe away the rain. "He won't kill him," he whispered to her. "The Piper is far too frightened of the Adderhead for that!"

"But he hates my father! Hate is sometimes stronger than fear! And if the Piper doesn't kill him, then the Milksop will do it, or the Adderhead himself. He'll never get out of that castle alive, never!"

How her hands were shaking – as if all her fear was in her fingers. But Doria clasped them so firmly in his own hands that they couldn't shake anymore. He had strong hands, although his fingers weren't much longer than her own. Farid's hands were slender by comparison.

"Farid says you saved your father once with words when he was wounded. He says you did it just with words."

Yes, but she had no words this time.

Words…

"What is it?" Doria let go of her hands and looked at her with a question in his eyes. Farid was still watching them, but Meggie ignored him. She planted a kiss on Doria's cheek. "Thank you!" she said, quickly getting to her feet.

Of course he didn't understand what she was thanking him for. Words. The words that Orpheus had written! How could she have forgotten them?

She ran through the wet grass to the tent where her parents were sleeping. Mo will be terribly angry, she thought, but he'll live! Hadn't she read what would happen next into this story more than once already? It was time to do it again, even if that meant it wouldn't end as Mo wanted. The Black Prince would just have to tell the rest of it. He'd find a way to make it turn out well, even Without the Bluejay's aid. For the Bluejay must leave – before her father died with him.

The Strong Man had nodded off. His head had sunk onto his chest, and he was snoring slightly as Meggie crept past him.

Her mother was awake. She had been crying.

"I need to talk to you!" Meggie whispered to her, "Please!"

Mo was fast asleep. Resa cast a glance at his sleeping face and then followed Meggie outside. They still weren't speaking to each other very much. Meggie found it impossible to forget that night among the graves. Yet now she was about to do exactly what her mother had intended when she rode to Ombra in secret.

"If it's about tomorrow," said Resa, taking her hand, "don't tell anyone, but I'm going to Ombra with them, even though your father doesn't want me to. I want at least to be near him when he rides into the castle…"

"He's not going to ride into the castle."

Rain was still falling through the fading leaves as if the trees were shedding tears, and Meggie longed for Elinor's garden. The rain sounded so peaceful there. Here it whispered of nothing but death and danger. "I'm going to read the words."

Dustfinger turned, and for a moment Meggie was afraid he could see in her face what she planned to do and tell Mo, but he turned away again and kissed Roxane's black hair,

"What words?" Resa looked at her blankly.

"The words Orpheus wrote for you!" The words for which Mo almost died, she wanted to add. Now they would save his life.

Resa looked back at the tent where Mo was sleeping. "I don't have them anymore," she said. "I burned them when your father didn't come back."

No.

"They couldn't have protected him anyway!"

A glass man appeared among dripping wet nettles, pale green, like many of the glass men who still lived in the forest. He sneezed

and scurried away in alarm at the sight of Meggie and Resa.

Her mother placed her hands on Meggie's shoulders. "He didn't want to come with us, Meggie! He told Orpheus to write something just for us. Your father wants to stay, even now, and neither you nor I can force him to go back. He'd never forgive us."

Resa tried to stroke her daughter's wet hair back from her forehead, but Meggie pushed her hand away. It couldn't be true. She was lying. Mo would never stay here without his wife and daughter… would he?

"And perhaps he's right. Perhaps everything will turn out well," said her mother quietly. "And one day we'll be telling Elinor how your father saved the children of Ombra." Resa's voice didn't sound half as hopeful as her words. "Bluejay," she whispered as she glanced at the men sitting by the fire. "The first present your father ever gave me was a bookmark made of blue jay feathers. Isn't that strange?"

Meggie didn't answer. And Resa caressed her wet face once more and went back to the tent.

Burnt.

It was still dark, but a few freezing fairies were already beginning to dance. Mo would soon be setting out, and there was nothing that could stop him. Nothing.

Battista was sitting alone between the roots of the great oak that the guards climbed at night. You could see almost as far as Ombra from its highest branches. He was making a new mask. Meggie saw the blue feathers in his lap and knew who would soon be wearing it.

"Battista?" Meggie kneeled down beside him. The ground was cold and damp, but the moss among the roots was as soft as the cushions in Elinor's house.

He looked at her, his eyes full of sympathy. His glance was even more comforting than Doria's hands. "Ah, the Bluejay's daughter," he said in the voice that the Strong Man called Battista's marketplace voice. "What a beautiful sight at such a dark hour. I've sewn your father a good place to hide a sharp knife. Can a poor strolling player ease your heart in some other way?"

Meggie tried to smile. She was so tired of tears. "Can you sing me a song? One of the songs the Inkweaver wrote about the Bluejay? It has to be one of those! The best you know. A song full of power and…"

"Hope?" Battista smiled. "Of course. I could fancy such a song, too. Even if," he added, lowering his voice to a conspiratorial tone, "even if your father doesn't like having them sung when he's around. But I'll sing it so quietly that my voice won't wake him. Let's see, which is the right song for this dark night?" He thoughtfully stroked the mask on his lap. It was nearly finished. "Yes," he whispered at last. "I know!" And he began singing in a soft voice:

Piper, beware, your end is near,

The Adder's power dwindles.

He writhes, he goes in mortal fear,

Nothing his strength rekindles.

Though you seek the Jay in country and town,

No sword can wound him, no hound run him down,

And when you think you'll succeed in your quest,

You find that the bird has flown the nest.

Yes, those were the right words. Meggie got Battista to sing them to her until she could remember every line. Then she sat down a little way from everyone else, under the trees, where the firelight still kept the darkness of night away, and wrote the song down in the notebook that Mo had bound for her long ago, in that other life, after a quarrel that now seemed so strange. Meggie, you'll lose yourself in the Inkworld. Didn't he say something like that to her at the time? And now he himself didn't want to leave this world, he wanted to stay here alone, without her.

Words written down in black and white. It was a long, long time since she'd read anything aloud. When did she last do it? When she brought Orpheus here? Don't think about that, Meggie. Think of the other times, the Castle of Night, the words that helped when Mo was wounded…

Piper, beware, your end is near.

Yes, she could still do it. Meggie felt the words gathering weight on her tongue as she wove them into her surroundings…

The Adder's power dwindles. He writhes, he goes in mortal fear, Nothing his strength rekindles…

She sent the words to find Mo in his sleep, made him armor out of them, armor that even the Piper and his dark master couldn't pierce…

Though you seek the Jay in country and town, No sword can wound him, no hound run him down, And when you think you'll succeed in your quest, You find that the bird has flown the nest.

Meggie read Fenoglio's song over and over again. Until the sun rose.