Inkdeath by Cornelia Funke Page B

green and sheltering a nest full of fire-elves. On the page beside it, flowers and leaves twined around a picture hardly the size of a playing card. Mo followed the tendrils with his eyes, discovered seed-heads, fire-elves, strange fruits, tiny creatures that he couldn’t name. The picture so skillfully framed showed two men surrounded by fairies. They were standing outside a village, with a crowd of ragged men behind them. One of the two was black and had a bear by his side. The other wore a bird mask, and the knife in his hand was a bookbinder’s knife.

    "The Black Hand and the White Hand of Justice. The Prince and the Bluejay."
    Balbulus looked at his work with barely concealed pride. "I’ll probably have to make some changes. You’re even taller than I thought, and your bearing. . . But what am I talking about? I’m sure you’re not anxious for this picture to resemble you too much
    — although of course it’s meant only for Violante’s eyes. Our new governor will never see it, because luckily there’s no reason for him to toil up all the stairs to my workshop. To the Milksop’s way of thinking, the value of a book is defined by the amount of wine it will buy. And if Violante doesn’t hide it well, he’ll soon have exchanged it — like all the other books my hands have made — for wine or for a new silver-powdered wig. He can think himself truly lucky that I’m Balbulus the illuminator and not the Bluejay, or I’d be making parchment of his perfumed skin."
    The hatred in Balbulus’s voice was black as the night painted in his pictures, and for a moment Mo saw in those expressionless eyes a flash of the fire that made the illuminator such a master of his art.

    Footsteps resounded on the stairs, heavy and regular, footsteps of a kind that Mo had heard only too often in the Castle of Night. Soldiers’ footsteps.

    "What a pity. I really would have liked a longer chat!" Balbulus heaved a regretful sigh as the door was pushed open. "But I’m afraid there are persons of much higher rank in this castle who want to talk to you."

    Three soldiers took Mo between them. Fenoglio watched in dismay as they tied his hands.

    "You can go, Inkweaver!" said Balbulus.

    "But this — this is all a terrible misunderstanding!" Fenoglio was trying really hard not to let his voice betray his fear, but even Mo wasn’t deceived.

    "Perhaps you shouldn’t have described him in such detail in your songs," Balbulus observed wearily. "To the best of my knowledge that’s been his undoing once before.
    By way of contrast, look at my pictures. I always show him with his mask on!"

    Mo heard Fenoglio still protesting as the soldiers pushed him down the stairs. Resa!
    No, this time he didn’t have to fear for her. She was safe with Roxane at the moment, and the Strong Man was with her. But what about Meggie? Had Farid taken her to Roxane’s farm yet? The Black Prince would look after both of them. He’d promised that often enough. And, who knew, perhaps they’d find their way back — back to Elinor in the old house crammed with books right up to the roof, back to the world where flesh and blood wasn’t made of letters.

    Mo tried not to think of where he would be by then. He knew Just one thing: The Bluejay and the bookbinder would die the same death.

CHAPTER 8
ROXANE’S PAIN

    Resa often rode over to see Roxane, although it was a long way and the roads around Ombra grew more perilous with every passing day. But the Strong Man was a good bodyguard, and Mo let her go because he knew how many years she had lived in this world already, surviving even without him and the Strong Man.

    Resa and Roxane had made friends tending the wounded together in the mine below Mount Adder, and their long journey through the Wayless Wood with a dead man had only deepened their friendship. Roxane never asked why Resa had wept almost as much as she did on the night when Dustfinger struck his bargain with the White Women. They had become