Inkdeath

73. THE OTHER SIDE

The Black Prince was still with Roxane. She was going to splint his injured leg so that he could walk on it. Walk to the Castle in the Lake. "We have time," Meggie had told him, although her heart was in a hurry. Mo would certainly need as long to bind this White Book as he had needed in the Castle of Night.

The Black Prince intended to set out with almost all his men to stand by the Bluejay. But without Elinor and without Meggie. "Your father made me promise that you and your mother would stay in a safe place," he had told her. "With your mother I wasn't able to keep my promise, but at least I'll keep it where you're concerned. Didn't you promise him the same thing?"

No, she had not. So she would go, even if it almost broke her heart to leave Doria behind. He still hadn't woken up, but Darius would talk to him. And Elinor. And she would come back – wouldn't she?

Farid was going with her. He would be able to call fire if the weather grew cold on their way, and she had stolen some dried meat and filled one of Battista's leather bottles with water. How could the Black Prince think she would stay after she had seen those fiery words? How could he think she'd leave her father to die as if this were some other, quite different story?

"Meggie, the Black Prince doesn't know about the words," Fenoglio had pointed out. "And he has no idea what Orpheus is up to, either!" But Fenoglio did know, and all the same – just like the Prince – he didn't want her to go. "Do you want what happened to your mother to happen to you, too? No one knows where she is. No, you must stay. We'll help your father in our own way. I'll write day and night, I promise you. But what use is that if you don't stay here to read what I've written?"

Stay here. Wait. No, she was sorry, but she was going to steal away in secret like Resa, and she wouldn't get lost… she'd waited far too long already. If Fenoglio did indeed think of something – and he had certainly been able to write the giant here – then Darius could read it, and the children had Battista and Elinor, Roxane and Fenoglio to look after them. But Mo was alone, all alone. He needed her. He'd always needed her.

Elinor was snoring gently. Darius slept next to her, in between Minerva's children. Meggie moved as quietly as the woven structure of the nest allowed, picking up her jacket, her boots, and the backpack that still reminded her of the other world.

"Ready?" Farid was standing in the round doorway of the nest. "It will soon be light."

Meggie nodded – and turned as Farid stared past her, his eyes as wide as a child's.

A White Woman was standing beside the sleepers. She looked at Meggie.

She had a pencil in her hand, a short, worn-out chalk pencil, and with a look of invitation she was offering Farid one of the candles that Elinor had brought from Ombra. Farid went toward her like a sleepwalker, and with a whisper lit the wick. The White Woman dipped her pencil into the flame and began to write on a sheet of paper. Meggie had been trying to write a good end to her father's story on it after the giant took Fenoglio away. The White Woman wrote and wrote, while Minerva whispered her husband's name in her sleep, while Elinor turned over onto her other side, while Despina put her arm around her brother, and the wind blew through the wickerwork of the nest, almost putting out the candle. Then the White Woman straightened up, looked at Meggie once more, and disappeared as if the wind had blown her away.

Farid breathed a sigh of relief when she had gone, and pressed his face into Meggie's hair. But Meggie gently moved him aside and bent over the paper on which the White Woman had written.

"Can you read it?" Farid whispered.

Meggie nodded.

"Go to the Black Prince and tell him he can spare his leg," she said softly. "We'll all stay here. The song of the Bluejay has been written."