Think of all the horrors that I
Promised you I'd bring
I promise you
They'll sing of every time
You passed your fingers through my hair and called me child
Witness me old man, I am The Wild
The Horror and the Wild—The Amazing Devil
The castle is alight with sparks and licking flames, devouring tapestries and peeling the paint from the walls. Julianne doesn't care about all that, not when Mo's got her wrapped up in a hug and she can feel his heart beating under her cheek. She's missed him so much, she'd been so scared of what Piper and Thumbling might be doing to him, but he's here and he's warm.
"You can't stay here," Dustfinger says sharply, spinning to face Mo with bright eyes. Showers of sparks rain down from his shoulders, hitting the floor and extinguishing themselves. "It's not safe for you or Julianne!"
"I have to find the White Book," Mo says stubbornly.
"Then I'll find it! I'll write the three words while you and your family get out through the secret tunnel." Julianne can feel Mo shaking his head, his chin brushing over her hair as gently as his hand has a thousand times. "Good God, Silvertongue. Why the hell would you risk this? What if those soldiers find Julianne? They know her face!"
"What if you write the words and Death still comes for her and Meggie? I'm the one that struck the bargain with her."
"What bargain," Resa asks, cutting off whatever Dustfinger was about to say. Mo's arms tighten, refusing to let Julianne pull back for a moment. She works her way free, though, and tries to find an answer in the dips and hollows of his face. She's had this face memorized her entire life, she knows how guilt twists his mouth and fear darkens his eyes.
"Mo," Julianne asks. His hand goes to the puckered scar leftover from Mortola's shotgun, a fine tremor running through his fingers. She wonders if that's fear or anger making them quake. "Why would Death come for Meggie and me? What did you promise?"
"I—" Mo cuts himself off and glances away toward a window. They'd moved on to a different room once they'd rescued Mo, this one an old nursery with lambs and wolves painted on the walls. Beyond that window is another courtyard, an old garden with dying weeds and a dead tree with twisted limbs. It's not a comforting sight. "I had to make a bargain to bring Dustfinger back."
"Yes, we got that much."
"I have to kill the Adderhead and destroy the White Book or…. Or You, your sister, and I will be killed as punishment for binding it in the first place." Resa's face crumples and she begins to cry, letting Mo take her into his arms. When he tries to draw Julianne in, she slaps his hand away and steps out of his reach. His hurt expression just makes her angrier, hot fury racing through her and setting all her nerves on fire like the castle around her. "Juli—"
"No." Her voice is so cold that she hardly recognizes it and guilt bites at her when Mo flinches. She's not supposed to be angry with Mo, but she can't help it. She's angry at everyone in this room; Dustfinger for dying, Mo for making the bargain, Resa for leaving her behind, and herself for being like this.
"Juli," Mo tries again, looking at her with a creased brow. There's concern there, but there's also hate and fear of whatever Orpheus had done to him. They're both different people in that instant of locked gazes, filled to the brim with violent hate that has their hearts beating harshly against their ribs, calling for bloodshed. "I'm going to make this right."
"You can't promise that." Her voice isn't cold anymore, it's toneless as she slides down a dusty wall to the dusty floor. The whole room is covered in dust so thick that it could pass as ashes. It's fitting, she supposed.
"I'll kill him and then I'll destroy the Book once and for all." He urges Resa away from him and picks up a sword he'd stolen at some point on their way here, wiping the blood off onto his shirt sleeve so the blade doesn't rust. She hates how naturally the motion comes to Mo, how he does it with the same ease he'd once used to strip books out of their old clothes. It's like seeing a puppy kicking an old woman into oncoming traffic. Dustfinger moves in front of the door, filled with the same burning anger as all of them.
"That's your bright idea," he snarls. "Orpheus wrote the words, yes, but you're the one making them come true!" He raises his hands and fire sketches out a bloody song, the end of the Bluejay. 'He painted dreadful pictures in his heart, and the Bluejay, broken by his own darkness, pleaded with the Adderhead to be allowed to bind him a second Book, even more beautiful than the first. But as soon as the Silver Prince had the Book in his hands he condemned him to die the slowest of all deaths, and the minstrels sang the Last Song of the Bluejay.' Mo tries to swat the words away, but only succeeds in burning his fingers.
"Then what do you suggest I do?"
"Let me go to Orpheus and steal the books that give him his words to read. Once you're able to think straight again, we'll find the White Book together."
"What if the soldiers find us in here while you're gone," Resa asks. Her eyes are red and swollen from crying and her hand is moving restlessly over her belly. "What do you suppose I should do if they take him and Julianne anyway?" Dustfinger passes his hand over the faded lines of a wolf, flames taking on its shape and leaping to the floor.
"It's not as fierce as Orpheus' guard dog, I grant you, but it'll howl if the soldiers come. Hopefully it will hold them off long enough for you three to find another hiding place. Fire will teach the Adder's men to fear every shadow." The wolf lopes out of the room on silent paws, but Dustfinger pauses in the doorway to look at Mo again. "The words don't have to be true, Silvertongue. I know that better than anyone." Mo turns his back on the fiery song still suspended in the air, looking down at his hands as if to check that they really do belong to him. Julianne feels too tired to console him, stretching her legs out in front of her and rubbing at her belly. It's firm, she notes again, frowning. It's firm but it's curving out slightly, round beneath her palm.
"Mo?" Resa crosses the room and turns Mo to face her, pressing a gentle kiss to his lips. Julianne wants to look away from their private moment, to make a face of disgust like she had as a child, but it's been so damn long since she saw her parents just holding each other. Maybe that's why she doesn't catch on right away, maybe she purposefully chooses to ignore the determination straightening Resa's spine. "I'm going to go find the White Book and write the words in it."
"Resa," Mo asks, brows crinkled over his brown eyes. "No!" He tries to knock her hand away from her mouth, but it's too late. Resa's transformation is smoother this time, feathers sprouting as she shrinks with little more than a grunt of pain. "No, Resa!" She soars through the burning words and out of the room before Mo can catch her or Julianne can struggle to her feet. She's really getting tired of being left behind in this old ass castle.
"Mo," Julianne asks after a long moment. She glances over at her father, but he's still staring at the doorway. Or maybe he's staring at the gap in the flames Resa had caused, a singed feather lying on the floor beneath the words. "Mo?" He grunts to show he heard her, but he doesn't look at her. "What did Orpheus do to you?"
"He read words tailor-made to torture me. Dark thoughts that constrict my heart and images that…. Well, I could certainly do without those images, sweet girl." Her eyes flutter shut at the rarely used nickname, a name her biological mother had given her when she was still small enough to ride around on Mo's shoulders. Victoria Folchart has been dead for a long time. "'Let him lose himself, let the Bluejay howl like a mad dog, let him trap himself in his own fear. Let loose the Furies who can kill him so cleverly from the inside,' that's what Orpheus decided." Julianne purses her lips and forces herself to stand again.
"So don't be the Bluejay."
"What?" That actually catches his attention, turning his back on the song to look at her. Julianne shrugs in response, playing at indifference.
"Don't be the Bluejay."
"And who do you suggest I become? The Prince's bear perhaps?" She laughs at that, imagining her father on four legs getting head pats from the Black Prince. Her smile lingers even after the laughter fades and she's glad to see a faint smile curling at Mo's lips as well.
"Be who you've always been." She crosses the space between them, running her fingers along his brow. There's no fever there, no sign of the torment that Orpheus is inflicting on him aside from a smoldering rage deep in his eyes. "Be Mo." The creases along his forehead relax for the first time in a long time, realization dousing that rage.
"Huh, that might actually work."
"Well, duh. I'm far more clever than people give me credit for." Mo laughs and the sound is so achingly familiar that she can't help the way she throws herself against him. He catches her like he always used to before the Inkworld stole part of him, his arms warm and secure around her. After they pull apart again, she nods at the open door. "Are we seriously waiting here like a couple of distressing damsels?"
"Lord, no. Let's go find that damn Book." Dustfinger's wolf is waiting just outside the door, its tongue hanging out as it pants. It's so lifelike that Julianne's fingers itch to reach out and scratch behind its fiery ears, but she resists. "Come on, then, wolf." It lopes ahead of them, leaving paw prints of ash behind as Julianne and Mo pick their way carefully through the castle. They melt into the shadows when they can and Mo kills any soldiers when they can't, stopping only when they pass through an archway into a courtyard.
"Is that the Adder's tower," Julianne asks.
"Only one way to find out." Mo kills the two soldiers on guard duty and he steals a cloak and helmet to better disguise himself. Julianne dons the spare cloak, hiding her hair beneath its hood and praying no one catches onto the fact that a soldier is wearing a dark blue and purple dress. They pass through another archway into the tower itself, taking the winding stairs up and up until they come to a hall that Mo seems to recognize. He takes her hand as they stop in front of a door, the room on the other side of it filled to bursting with dead books in moldering dresses. The stench is nearly overpowering, but Dustfinger's sparks make it tolerable.
"What's this room called?"
"The Lost Library," Mo says, gazing around with sad eyes. The Bluejay is pushed aside in this room, the bookbinder's grief far more powerful than anything else. His grief had led him to find Resa, to killing Capricorn, to binding the White Book. Mo leans his bloodied sword against the wall and picks up a book, pushing the Bluejay farther and farther away from his mind so that Orpheus' words can't reach his heart.
"It's sad in here." Julianne moves to stand near a window, staring down at the courtyard they'd left behind. She doesn't know what it had once been used for, can't even make out the pictures on the walls for the sparks decorating them like so many Christmas lights. "I miss my book box. All those books filled with poetry…."
"So do I, Juli." It's the rustling of falling books that breaks the sad trance they'd fallen into, a man missing his right hand coming out of a pile of them. Julianne thinks of golden coins and sand falling to the floor of a church, of a boy with beautiful brown eyes that had followed them out of his story. This person belongs in this story, however. It's only Balbulus.
"Oh," he grunts, looking distastefully at Mo. "You're the one they're looking for. I've been hiding in here since Piper's arrival and the stench has been enough to keep his soldiers away until today. They've been in here twice already. How'd you manage to escape them this time?"
"Dumb luck." Mo glances back to the book in his hands and Julianne sees the same misery etching itself into Balbulus' round face. She doubts these two have had more than two conversations the entire time Mo's been in the Inkworld, but their shared love of books is warming the illustrator up to Mo.
"I've found some books that aren't as bad as all these. Would you like to see them?" He doesn't wait for an answer, digging through the pile he'd been hiding in until he finds what he's looking for. The book he passes to Mo is small, the leather binding unscathed apart from a few holes a bookworm had nibbled into it, the rot having missed it entirely.
"It's wonderful," Mo breathes, rifling through the delicate pages. Julianne joins him, taking in the carefully written words in black ink, the yellow pages that have gone soft from many fingers flipping through them, the illustrations of mermaids and giants.
"Hey, what's that?" Julianne glances away from the book and it takes her a good minute to realize what Balbulus is talking about. The sparks have died away, only a thin coating of ash left behind to show they'd ever been there at all. That can't bode well. If Dustfinger's gone and gotten himself killed again, she's going to bring him back just so she can murder him herself.
"Silvertongue?" And there's the idiot himself, standing in the doorway like a shadow outlined in dim flames. For a moment, just an instant, Julianne's belly clenches with nerves because she hasn't seen him look this desperate since Capricorn's village. All the composure Death had given him has burned away. "I've been talking to Orpheus."
"What's happened," Mo asks. Dustfinger doesn't step into the room, but he whispers and urges the flames to come again. The image they form is of a woman in a cage and the terror in his blue eyes matches the terror Julianne had felt when her son had been held captive by the Piper. "Are the soldiers waiting for me outside?"
"I haven't laid the trail yet."
"Then lay it and lead them here. It's time my hands relearned the practice of cutting paper rather than cutting down men." The fear rises in Julianne until she feels as though she'll drown in it. When did grief and fear become so familiar to her? When had it become almost normal rather than joy and contentment? She doesn't want to lose her father or her sister, she's so tired of losing people in this damned world.
"Mo," she starts, voice choked with tears. He shakes his head without even looking at her, like to look at her and see the desperation in her eyes would make him fold in on himself.
"Let them capture the bookbinder, sweet girl. I'll banish the Bluejay forever, bury him deep in the dungeon cell below, with the words that Orpheus wrote." Dustfinger breathes into the air, turning Brianna's cage in the same unicorn's head seal that Mo stamps on the spines of all his books.
"If you're back to playing the bookbinder, does that mean I'm to play the coward again," Dustfinger asks. "I'd really rather play another role than that."
"So play your daughter's rescuer. Be my family's protector. Resa's gone to the Adderhead's chambers to find the Book. Help her find it and bring it to me so I can write the words." Mo does look at Julianne now, his dark eyes pleading her to go with Dustfinger. He really should know better than all of that by now. Above all else, she is and always will be Mo's girl. "Go with him, Juli."
"No," she murmurs, the fear being slowly consumed by cool resolve. "I helped you bind the first Book, I might as well help you bind a second." She takes her father's hand like she had so many times when she was little, leaning her head against his shoulder. "Think of it as a family tradition."
"A family with no sense of self-preservation between them," Dustfinger says, laughing softly. "To think I'm marrying into it." Julianne goes stock still, then slowly turns to look at Dustfinger. "What?" He doesn't seem to realize what he's said, but then he's slapping his palm against his forehead and letting out a curse. "I knew I was forgetting to do something. Julianne, would you do me the honor of—"
"Propose to me after we get out of here. When our kids ask, we can tell them it happened in a meadow rather than while coming up with a half-baked plan to kill a Prince."
"Fair enough." Mo clears his throat loudly and pointedly, Dustfinger and Julianne sharing an ashamed look. This is a serious moment and they've made a joke of it. "Right, sorry."
"How many men are guarding Brianna," Mo asks. The shame gives way to something darker, something bitter.
"The Night-Mare."
"Perhaps destroying it won't be too hard. Orpheus read it out of a children's story, though I'm not sure if that makes the Night-Mare any less dangerous. My point is that it's made of words, and I'm sure Orpheus used words to make it obey him. Just a few twisted sentences and the terror in the night becomes an obedient dog."
"That didn't make me feel any better if that was your aim, Silvertongue. We're in a world made of words and we both have first-hand knowledge that it isn't always kind." Dustfinger lets out a soft breath, some of the color leaving his cheeks as he looks behind him to the empty hall. "I'll try to find the Book while the Adder's distracted."
"If you don't find the Book, then at least let us try to save our daughters." Mo reaches out to stroke Julianne's thick hair, pushing the tangled locks off her cheek. "Our children will always be more important than us." Julianne knows the truth in his words, she'd die for her baby.
"I'll bring fire to help you as soon as I've freed Brianna and I'll bring the White Book with me."
Julianne hums softly as she listens to her father work, the familiar sounds of cutting paper, the smell of glue. For a moment, she's transported back to when she was too short to reach the table, sitting in Mo's lap as he sang Bare Necessities and cured sick books. She misses those days, the days between Resa becoming Julianne's mother and Meggie being born.
"You're taking your sweet time, Bluejay," Piper drawls, watching Mo's work like a hawk. "Is it because you know you'll be killed when you're finished?" One black-gloved hand beats against Mo's back so hard that he lurches forward over the table he's chained to.
"The more you hit him, the longer this will take," Julianne advises. He sneers down at her, one of his soft leather boots colliding with her thigh. She doesn't show how much it hurts, just goes back to humming.
Mo's ankles are chained to the table legs, but the Adderhead had taken great care to make sure it was Julianne's neck that was chained to the table.
"I would have preferred a cage," he'd said, his breath as rancid as the swollen flesh hanging off his bones. "A pretty collar will have to do for now." She's glad he's not here now, his stench filling a room even as big as the Hall of a Thousand Windows. Those windows have been draped with black cloths now, blocking out every bit of light apart from the four candles burning on Mo's table.
The room falls silent again apart from the sounds Mo makes and Julianne's humming. She's not sure what song it is yet, but the melody is stuck in her head. She's nearly hummed herself into a light doze when the hall's door swings open to allow Orpheus inside. Her humming cuts off immediately as she glares at the fat man.
"There you are," he says by way of greeting. His smile is triumphant as he comes to a stop in front of the table, lips wet with spit and sweetened wine. "This role suits you much better than the robber Fenoglio painted you as. And you, Songbird, are finally learning your place." Her eyes narrow as she shifts on the cold floor, kicking Orpheus' shin. "Bitch!"
"Dumbass," she spits back, trying to kick at him again. Orpheus jumps back out of her reach, glaring over at where the Piper is doing his best to conceal a cruel smile. Piper hates Orpheus just as much as Julianne, he won't punish her as long as she takes her anger out on Orpheus instead of him.
"You're just angry because Dustfinger worked alongside me to capture you and your father." Orpheus sniffs and brushes his pale hair back, composing himself while also favoring his sore leg. "You ought to have known Dustfinger would betray you some time. He betrays everyone. It's the part he plays best."
"Does that mean you're set to play the obnoxious windbag who likes to hear his own voice?"
"Leave them to work, Four-Eyes," Piper snaps. "Or do you want me telling the Adderhead that he has to live in his itching skin a little longer just because you felt like a nice chat?"
"Don't forget, your master will soon be rid of that skin, Piper, and he owes it all to me! Your powers of persuasion haven't impressed our bookbinding friend much, if I remember rightly." Oh my God, it's a dick measuring competition. The future of the whole Inkworld hangs in the balance and these two are arguing about who Daddy loves the best. What the fuck even is her life?
"What are you talking about, Orpheus," Mo asks. He's looking up and the expression there is the same one Julianne used to adopt whenever he caught her with her hand in the cookie jar—innocent with an edge of mischief. "The Adderhead should only be grateful to Piper. My daughter and I were careless, we ran right into him and his men. You had nothing at all to do with it."
"What?"
"That's exactly what I'll tell the Adderhead once he's had some sleep. Isn't that right, Juli?" Orpheus' eyes flick down to her and she doesn't even try to feign innocence. The malice he finds in her pale eyes is enough to make his cheeks flush.
"Careful, bookbinder, I'll have that silver tongue cut out of your head if you use it to spread lies about me." He looks like he wants to take a step forward to better intimidate Mo, but Julianne's ready to deliver another kick and he seems to know that.
"Oh yes? And who will you have do that?" Mo looks over at the Piper, the innocence fading away to reveal something harder. This isn't the Bluejay, this is just how Mo gets when his family is threatened. This is the same man who read Capricorn's death out of Inkheart. "My girls are never to be found after you're done with me. Neither is my grandson."
"That's a promise," the Piper says, smiling. "The Bluejay has no family, and he'll keep his tongue, too. So long as it speaks the right words." Say your right words, Julianne thinks and suppresses a giggle. Piper might as well be the Goblin King, though he has a decided lack of glitter. Orpheus bites his lips so hard that they turn as white as his skin, rage darkening his eyes.
"I'll write new words," he hisses. "Words that will make you and your daughter writhe like worms on a hook!" Mo and Julianne share a look, both thinking the same thing. Orpheus would use their other names in his writing, Bluejay and Songbird, but he won't mention their other names. He's not smart enough for all that.
"Write what you like," Mo shrugs. "It makes no difference to us." Orpheus stomps out of the room and slams the door shut behind him, the faint draft rolling through the hall until the candle flames gutter dangerously low. "A bit of a drama king, isn't he?"
"Self-important people usually are," Piper muses. Julianne wonders if he hears the irony in his voice considering he's as self-important as they come. He's just a minstrel with a pretty voice, and even that has become strained of late. "Why don't you sing us something, Songbird? Distract us from this monotony." She wants to make a sarcastic remark about how he's supposed to be the minstrel, but she's too tired and she'd rather not have him kick her again. Instead, she sings the words that go with the melody stuck in her head. Overhead, a swift flies into the room and alights on a beam above the table.
"High in the halls of the kings who are gone, Jenny would dance with her ghosts," she sings, low and melancholy. "The ones she had lost and the ones she had found and the ones who had loved her the most. The ones who'd been gone for so very long, she couldn't remember their names. They spun her around on the damp old stones, spun away all her sorrow and pain. And she never wanted to leave, never wanted to leave, never wanted to leave, never wanted to leave."
"They danced through the day and into the night through the snow that swept through the hall," Piper joins in. "From winter to summer then winter again 'til the walls did crumble and fall. And she never wanted to leave, never wanted to leave, never wanted to leave, never wanted to leave. And she never wanted to leave, never wanted to leave, never wanted to leave, never wanted to leave. High in the halls of the kings who are gone, Jenny would dance with her ghosts. The ones she had lost and the ones she had found and the ones who had loved her the most." She opens her eyes when Piper starts to curse, fire dancing over the walls again, licking higher and higher until it brushes the ceiling.
"Why are you smiling like that, Bluejay," Piper demands. He stalks over to the table, carefully out of Julianne's reach, and punches Mo in the gut. Overhead, the swift cries out her protest. "Do you think your fiery friend will come to make amends for betraying you? Don't rejoice too soon! This time I'm going to chop off his head. We'll see if he can come back from the dead without that!"
"At this point, I think I could annoy Death into bringing him back again," Julianne muses. "I've been told that I'm extremely irritating." Piper kicks at her again, hitting the same spot as before. Come morning, she'll have a perfect impression of the boot's sole on her thigh. Piper looks ready to kick her again, but the door opens to allow Jacopo inside, distracting him from his cruelty.
"Will it be ready soon," the little Prince asks as he stops in front of Mo's table. There's a faint bulge under his tunic, but no one other than Julianne notices it.
"It will be ready sooner if you leave the Bluejay to do his work," Piper says. Jacopo doesn't pay much attention to Piper, pulling a book out from under his tunic. Julianne doesn't catch much of a look at it as he sets it in front of Mo, but it's stained red and smells like the Adderhead's breath.
"I want the Bluejay to cure this book for me. It's my favorite." He flips the cover open and Julianne can see the shock creeping in over Mo's face, little cracks in his armor of indifference. It really is the White Book. She's going to have to give Jacopo a big hug if Mo's able to write the three words.
"There's only one book the Bluejay's supposed to bother with. Why don't you make yourself useful and tell the servants in the kitchen to send up more meat and wine?" As if to emphasize his point, he pours the last of the wine into his goblet and takes a long drink of it.
"I only want him to take a look at it!" Jacopo's voice sounds as defiant as ever. "Grandfather said I could get him to do that. You can ask him if you like." Jacopo passes Mo something else that he'd had cupped in his palm, but Julianne can't see what it is.
"Haven't you learned what I do to liars yet?" Jacopo sticks his chin out in the same stubborn way his mother does, stepping closer to Piper. Piper's eyes follow the boy, drifting away from Mo and the book that will save them all.
"What do you do?" Piper's smile is cold and his attention is fully on the boy. It's like no one else exists as long as he can tell stories of torture.
"First I cut their tongues out." It's a pencil, Julianne realizes. That's what Jacopo passed Mo, a pencil. He brings it to a blood-soaked page and begins to carefully print the words. Heart. "It's not easy to tell lies without a tongue. I did once know a mute beggar who told me shameless lies. He talked with his fingers, so I cut them off, one by one." Spell. Piper glances over at Mo, then down at the book and the pencil he's fast to hide beneath his hand. Overhead, the swift spreads her wings and lets out a call that has everyone glancing up at her. She leaves the beam, soaring down low through the air around Piper's head.
Write the word, Mo, she seems to be saying. Finish this once and for all!
"I've seen that bird before," Jacopo says. "It was in Grandfather's chambers."
"Did you indeed?" The bird lands on a narrow ledge, her feathers smooth and brown. Piper keeps his movements slow as he reaches for a crossbow, but he's never expecting the way Julianne lunges forward. The chain pulls tight around her throat, but Piper's shot goes wide because of the way she hits his knees. He stumbles to the side and Resa takes flight again, knocking Piper's nose loose as she flies into his face. It's enough of a distraction for Mo to put pencil to paper again, spelling out the final word—Death.
The White Woman appears as Mo closes the book, making Piper forget about the wrathful swift. At the sight of her, Jacopo drops to his knees and crawls onto Julianne's lap. She cradles him against her chest because he is still just a little boy and he needs someone to care about him. The White Woman lingers for a moment, releasing the Folcharts from the contract before disappearing again. Meggie and Mo are safe now, she realizes. There's a chance for a happy ending. But the Woman didn't take Piper with his master and Resa has landed right next to the man's boots. Piper doesn't even notice her now, too intent on wrapping Mo's chains around his hand and yanking Mo's legs out from under him. Mo hits the floor with a grunt, landing on his shoulder. Julianne urges Jacopo off her lap and lunges forward again, but Piper's just out of her reach.
"Your pale angel was in a hurry to leave this time," he says scornfully. "Why didn't she undo your chains for you? Don't worry, we'll leave you plenty of time to die, time enough for your white friends to come back again. Now, go on working." With some difficulty, Mo straightens up and shoves the White Book toward Piper.
"Why should I," he asks. "Your master won't be needing any second Book now. The Adderhead's dead. Go and see for yourself if you don't believe me." Piper goes very still, studying the bloody Book with something like cold realization. His hand goes to his sword and he draws it slowly, deliberately.
"Is he indeed? Well, I've no objection to immortality myself. So, as I said, go on working." His soldiers begin to whisper and he points at one of them with his free hand, nodding impatiently at the open door. "Go to the Adderhead and tell him the Bluejay claims he's dead." The soldier hurries out of the room and the other men watch him go fearfully. Piper pays them no mind, the tip of his sword resting against Mo's breastbone. "Get to working, Bluejay."
"No." Mo moves as far back as his chains allow, the knife meant for cutting paper in his hand. "There won't be any other Book. Off you go, Jacopo! Run to your mother and tell her everything will be all right." Jacopo races out of the room after the soldier, but Piper isn't interested in him.
"Cosimo's little bastard should have been killed after the Adderhead's son was born. My master is stupidly sentimental like that, but I'm not." The soldier he'd sent away comes back to the hall, huffing and puffing from the long run. "Well?"
"The Bluejay told the truth," the soldier says. "The Adderhead is dead and White Women have filled his chamber. Shall we go back to Ombra, sir? We could take the Bluejay with us away from this bewitched castle."
"That's not a bad idea. He can finish the book there and we can cage this Songbird up outside his window as encouragement." The swift flies up again, pecking at Piper's supercilious smile. He lashes out blindly, his sword cutting her wing and sending her to the ground. Resa lands as a human and it's enough of a shock to freeze Piper in place as Mo lunges forward, tackling Piper and driving the dull knife into his breast.
Unlike Piper, his men are far less shocked at what happens and charge forward. Mo picks up Piper's fallen sword and hacks away at them, but he's just one man and he's still tied to the table at that. Julianne does her best to help him, flinging the tools off the table at the men as best she can without being able to see what it is she's grabbing. Julianne has just run out of weapons when the candle flames leave their wicks, devouring her chains and Mo's all in one. Behind her, standing protectively in front of Resa with Gwin on his shoulder, Dustfinger is turning the fire on Piper's soldiers. He's got a steely glint in his eyes, but there's no trace of fear or desperation to be found. Jacopo steps out from behind Dustfinger when the screaming stops, studying Resa with the idle curiosity of children everywhere.
"She was a bird," he says.
"Yes," Mo agrees. "Don't you think that sounds like a good story?"