Disclaimer: I do not own Inkheart.
"If you could talk," I began, "would you tell me your story?" Resa smiled at me, a little secret smile. "Would you?"
She led me to the chair, made me sit. I laughed a little. "No, of course not," I said bitterly. "You think me weak, deceitful."
Resa shook her head, finger to her lips, but she didn't mean it, I could tell. Of course she wouldn't. No matter how you defined the word, I was a traitor- to my family, to Silvertongue, to Resa. But I was more than that.
"That's not all I am." I leaned back, closing my eyes. "Not all of me."
I could feel Resa's eyes on me, could feel the cursed mixture of pity and distrust that she always regarded me with. No matter what I said or did, it wasn't enough to break the image she had of me- a pathetic, self-serving, rat.
How could I make her see otherwise...or anyone else, for that matter? I had seen the hatred in Meggie's eyes when we'd left the bookworm woman's house. She didn't trust me either. None of them did. Then again, why should anyone trust me? What had I done, after all? Threatened Silvertongue, frightened his daughter, and brought on the destruction of that woman's house.
I hadn't always been this way. In my own world, I'd been the renowned Fire-Dancer. Magical? Certainly. Obdurate? Perhaps. But I'd been a friend, too; a devoted friend, a loving husband, and a well-intentioned, if somewhat absent, father.
But Silvertongue had torn all that away from me. He'd shattered my heart when he brought me into this damned world, shattered it into thousands of tiny, irreplaceable pieces. The only familiar faces around were Capricorn and Basta, who had been my mortal enemies before. But as much as I hated them, I had no one else to turn to. Silvertongue obviously didn't want to help me.
What Resa and the others didn't realize was that I wanted as little to do with Capricorn's awful plans as possible. I only helped him because he'd promised to help me get home. What a fool I was to believe him.
He wouldn't do it. He wouldn't even let Silvertongue try to read me back. Damn it, he'd burnt the last copy of the book! Destroyed it beyond repair, like my stony excuse for a heart.
I was ashamed, really. All of the wretched things I'd done, and for what? Nothing had come out of it. The only thing I wanted was to go home!...I'd never go back now. I was doomed to die here, in this world in which I was a stranger, and be forced to live with the pain of my treachery until I did. And I wouldn't even be able to apologize. I was too much of a coward even for that.