Leona adjusted her sunglasses. They were classy almond spy-like sunglasses. She wished she could find a good language learning spell or something. The books she held was only in English. She knew enough English to get by. In fact, she even knew enough English to read the book, but her plan would involve writing and recreating a language would make this a whole different story…literally, and that wasn't going to help. The read the title again: Story Thieves. It made her skin crawl and filled her with exhilaration at the same time. Her mom used to love the concept of thieves, a title like that though would have sent her into a fit. Why? Because that was exactly what her mom and grandpa had been at one point. It really wasn't a bad thing, but it was always a mess. That's why Leona followed the rules—Bethany's rules.
"I always wonder: how do we know that we're in the right world and not just your own personal mockup of the real world?" Dusty complained. Leona tilted her head, imitating that cool look and didn't answer. The truth was, she had no idea. She tried not to think to hard about it or else she'd go crazy. The book in her hand was already making her ware at the seams.
"If you're worried, you can just keep to the rules," she told him in a careless tone, but look around. There's no story going on around here. This is the real world, trust me. Dusty continued to murmur his doubt.
"Hey, where's Prince?" Durante asked suddenly. Leona looked over her shoulder and feigned concern.
"What didn't she follow us?" Dusty was giving her one of his looks. He was the spitting image of his father and it unnerved her. How many times had they been caught sneaking out together as children and been given that same look?
"Stop," she said.
"What?" Durante questioned. Leona turned away before her face could redden anymore.
"Dusty's just giving me that look again."
"Leona," Durante started in a careful tone. "Where is Prince? We practically promised her parent's we'd look out for her." Leona finally lost composure; folding her arms and talking a little too loudly.
"Which is exactly why I left her out. Do you remember what happened the last time we brought her? She was almost smashed by a giant and tree! She's fine, at home. And soon my mom will wake up and-"
"What if she tells?" Dusty complained.
"Are you kidding me? She hates that world way too much to tattle."
"Okay, but you're mom isn't stupid. When she finds Blackie all the way from the palace with no sign of us, she's going to know," he continued. She wanted to protest that her uncle would find an excuse for them, but she knew it wasn't really fair to keep putting her favorite person in that situation. Leona sighed and pulled out the paper from the pages of the rule book.
"Fine, but if she gets hurt or in trouble, you two are fixing it and reporting to her parents. I've said it before; I wash my hands of that twerp."
"I told you, I'll take responsibility for her," Durante insisted. Leona huffed and tried to relax. Reading in a mood like this was not going to be easy. An image from her mother's horror stories filled her mind of a man with a smashed face who was read out wrong. She slammed the book.
"Nope, can't do it right now, too tense. I need a soda." Dusty glared, but the practical Durante shrugged and headed up the street towards a fast food place. Soda was a miracle to each of them. With all the magic in the Inkworld, some things still remained unreachable. Her dad was a fabulous inventor, and would always strive to recreate the wonders of this world—things he'd never seen but his wife would speak of with nostalgia. His inventions never turned out quite right and it was unnerving when nymphs showed up in your plumbing system to complain. Durante's father would always huff at their efforts and seemed secretly pleased when they failed. He was like an extra uncle to her—the only person in the Inkworld who she felt understood her. Her actual uncle was pretty cool too, but he was always lecturing her on her carelessness. As if he was even that older than her!
So, soda was a rarity and a delight. At the restaurant, Leona sipped the sticky sweet lime drink and stared at the phone in her hands. She's pawned off a fictional diamond from a Snow White picture book for that one. Hopefully, it wouldn't cause any imbalance in the world or anything. Her uncle had been furious when he'd found out, but he still hadn't told her mother. Part of her suspected he'd wanted to do the same thing growing up and she was half-surprised he never joined them, but then that might be to the beautiful strolling player he was always talking to. Don't fall in love with the motley folk. It was a major rule of Inkworld that 100% of ink-people ignored. She glanced up at her friends. They were probably the oddest group ever, like a bunch of Demi-gods, only without the god part. Demis. Half-Inkworld; half-real. Half-Inkworld; Half-some-other-book. And then there was someone who technically shouldn't exist because his father was supposed to have died ages ago. The tapped her fingers absently on the rule book. This was a terrifying game that she really should leave alone. She wasn't going to though. She and Bethany had way too much in common. But then again, imagine a world without Durante?
"Are you going to get her?" Durante asked, as if on cue. Okay, maybe she could live without Durante. None of them should exist anyway. Just like Bethany. She looked at her phone again, scrolling through "books like Inkspell and Story Theives." So far the closest thing she'd found was a picture book about a teacher who has a magical story book. Not exactly what she was looking for, but handy to know about.
"Yeah, just a minute, and we'll have to find somewhere private."
"The bathroom," Dusty suggested the obvious with a smirk. Leona nodded in distraction. Were there really only two series about entering books? That was terrifying in itself. Maybe fanfiction would have something, but she was a little scared to know what reading fanfiction would do. Could you end up with twenty Bethany's and thirty Dustfingers, all with a different personality? What if she read out some twisted fan version of herself and her mom? Or what if she read herself into a fanfiction where the Inkworld was actually happy? That'd be a miracle. Finding Fenoglio's unfinished sequel was on her bucket list. There were too many questions. She turned off the phone screen before she started to go crazy again, then she tried to suck out the last drips of soda from the bottom of the cup.
"Okay. I'm ready," she told them at last, "See you in a second." She hopped from the table and headed to the bathroom, the rule book glued to her hand as always. She was going to have to get it some kind of cover. Too bad she couldn't let Grandpa know about it, he'd probably give it a very durable casing. She'd already had to glue and staple it once. (She was very proud of this work, because you'd never know it had split in half and more was the pity that she couldn't show her handiwork it to her grandpa—although, he might get bothered and redo the whole thing).
In a bathroom stall, she took a deep breath and prayed no one would come in while she was reading. The worlds rolled off her tongue. She'd read them some many times, had experienced them so many times, that she didn't even have to use her imagination. It was real. And there was Balckie, squished against the other wall.
"Always a bathroom," Blackie moaned, trying to keep her cloak from touching the toilet seat, "Why?"
"It's private," Leona said, trying to brush it off as she bust through the stall door.
"No, why do you keep leaving me behind?" Leona adjusted her glasses in the mirror.
"You're too young."
"I'm as old as you were when you started!"
"And I got into tons of trouble, and practically died once. I was lucky that book ended in a major plot twist. I follow the rules now," she explained holding up the book.
"You and your rules," Blackie muttered looking into the mirror and trying to do something with her hair. Her real name was long like Giovantellarie or something wild like that, but by the age of five she'd convinced most people to call her Prince—except Leona and Dusty who called her Blackie. It had been Leona's idea of course. She couldn't stand that anyone could be spoiled enough to insist on naming themselves. Prince was a pretty obvious reference, so Leona decided to preserve the name of the legendary figure without giving her the satisfaction of being referred to like royalty—and then Dusty added the diminutive. They'd almost called her Beary, she was lucky.
They walked out of the bathroom and Dusty waved. Blackie waved back at him and they plopped down.
"Okay, so what's the plan for today?" Durante asked. Leona casually flipped though the rule book, a little more relaxed now that Blackie was safely through and had her voice and everything. She stopped on a page that was marked up. Old Elinor would have had a heart attack to see it. It was the exact moment when the magister first stole Bethany's powers. What she'd give for that power. She was half-fictional wasn't she? Why couldn't she just hop in and out of books? Reading and writing took forever. Bethany's spectacular-ness probably had something to do with Nobody. Was the sequel out yet? If only she could talk to Bethany, but she didn't dare, not yet and not after having read the rule book. The rule book was probably the most dangerous book to ever read from, except maybe Inkspell. She didn't even want to think about what could happen if she read Inkspell out loud. Just having it downloaded to her phone gave her nightmares, but she had to have it to get home. It was at least better than Inkdeath. She'd read it once, and then proceeded to rip it to shreds. Fenoglio would have demanded to see the writer in court, not because of plagiarism but because of what he went through. It was history now and it shouldn't have made her so mad, but it did. She understood the Magister on that plane, but she figured Bethany did too. It was the paradox of causality. Did the writer make all those terrible things happen or was she just inspired to write what actually did happen? When people like Kiel or Dustfinger didn't die, what happened then? Is that the real reason why the original Inkheart, as well as any record of Fenoglio, had long ceased to exist in the real world? Because the story didn't actually happen? Always. More. Questions.
Leona flipped away from the dangerous rulebook with its dangerous thoughts. The preview to the next book was the most frightening of all since it seems their thieving had caught up to them. She frowned. Her mom had never had to worry about reading this much, although granted she'd had much worse things to deal with and still woke up with nightmares.
"I thought we would save Prim," she said pulling up an image of the Hunger Games on her phone, "And maybe Finnick, and Rue if we have time…It'll take a bit of research to figure out."
"That's kind of an intense book, and a really popular one that we could easily get noticed in. Are you sure you want to jump right into that one? I mean, I think we should eventually, but now?" Durante cautioned. Leona nodded carefully.
"Not, now exactly. I only mean that I think that should be our next big mission, but of course we'll have to train for it first. We've come a long way and I'd say we're pretty equipped. So, what's an already ruined world where we can train?"
"You are not about to suggest fan fiction are you?" Dusty moaned. Leona smiled.
"One day we're going to get caught."
"Look, we'll just fill in for a couple fan-double nameless tributes. I'm sure the fan Capitol won't be half as terrifying as the real Capitol. We'll still follow the rules and we'll pick a fic that was published so long ago the author won't even notice it if it changes."
"Sounds like it will work, let's do it," Durante agreed. The deaths or half-deaths of his father before his birth made him a good ally for this saving-game, but the ten years of his father's wanderings and the mess that came afterward also made him cautious enough to keep them out of real trouble. His approval always made Leona relax a little.
"Okay, let's go do some research first so I can make sure we can get in and out and that everything goes the way we want it to."
"Yes!" Blackie said with a fist-pump. Leona rolled her eyes and googled the nearest library. She was content though. Hunger Games would bring them one step closer to entering the rule book. She wanted three or so dangerous things from that book and would need a lot of practice in reading and entering to get them. She thought with a shiver that the lack of actual Keil Gnomenfoot books might have all too much in common with the lack of actual Inkheart—all because neither Bethany nor Mo nor Meggie ever obeyed their own rules. Breaking rules was stupid, and yet Leona was still going to do it, eventually.