I reread the Inkheart trilogy for the first time in ten years and loved it just as much. Something I wished though was that Meggie got more to do in Inkdeath - she is the main character after all! This is my attempt to give her a more impactful role in the book's ending.

I read these books in Swedish and therefore wrote the first draft of this in Swedish, so my writing style is a little different in this fic than my usual one. I also found it quite interesting that the English version's about 90 words longer than the Swedish one - maybe because Swedish has more compound words than English? I'm honestly not sure.

The strongest magic of all

The little flame Farid had lit on the desk danced in the pale tendrils of dawn trickling through the branch-made walls of the tree house, but the White Woman wasn't affected by its light – her shape more translucent, but her gaze steady as she brought the short, broken-off crayon through the flame… and held it out to Meggie.

"I don't understand," said Meggie. "What do you want me to do?"

The White Woman didn't answer with words; instead she floated a careful step aside. The paper on the writing pulpit was answer enough – the paper where Meggie, since the giant had taken Fenoglio, in vain had tried to write a happy ending for her father.

"I can't." Her voice trembled. "I am not like Fenoglio. My words don't come alive like his."

Behind her she heard Farid draw a breath as the White Woman closed in on them, but the look she gave Meggie didn't betray any malice. The opposite, in fact.

Try, it seemed to whisper. Give yourself another chance.

Meggie's gaze flickered to the crayon in the extended, pale hand. A shimmer seemed to surround it, as if the fire had brought something inside it to life. Suddenly Mo was back in her thoughts – Mo, who she was just about to set off after. Mo, stuck in a castle, stuck in a role this world had chosen for him. Mo, who despite all of this had sacrificed so much for this world and the people in it.

Without giving herself time to hesitate, she closed her fingers around the crayon.

The pictures crashed through her mind's eye like a tidal wave – flickering yet clear like the visions Farid's fire had shown her, but they felt deeper, more real… as if she were truly experiencing them herself.

She saw Mo, chained to a table, a book binder knife in his hand and paper and leather spread in front of him.

She saw Dustfinger, quiet as a shadow, sneak towards a courtyard where a girl – his daughter, she felt with sudden clarity – sat curled up in a bird cage.

She saw Jacopo by the edge of a dark pit of a prison cell, face pale as he listened to Violante's – his mother's – sobs.

And all at once she understood what the White Woman wanted to tell her. All at once she understood what the last song about the Bluejay should contain. The realization must have been visible in her face, because the White Woman smiled – a small, secretive smile – and then faded away, like she had been erased by the wind.

"Meggie?" Farid's voice was no more than a whisper, but Meggie felt a strange calm as she pulled out the desk's chair.

"I'm all right," she said, running a hand over her unfinished sentences. Words that had not been the right ones, but did they need to be?

Over the sound of Elinor's heavy breaths, the sound of Ivo and Despina moving in their sleep, Farid's steps were silent, but she felt his presence behind her. "You said your words don't come alive like Fenoglio's."

"No. But maybe that doesn't matter."

Because wasn't it the emotion behind the words that meant something, rather than the words themselves? Fenoglio was the author, far better at writing than Meggie could hope to be for many, many years… but the ending of the Bluejay's song mattered so much more to her. If anyone understood how hard a child's heart could beat for a happy ending, understood the connection that tied father and daughter together, that tied mother and son…

It was her.

Maybe that was why the White Woman thought her the right person to write the final song. Maybe not.

She flipped the parchment over. The crayon prickled in her hand as she held it over the blank page and as she hesitated, the entire Inkworld seemed to hold its breath with her.

A heartbeat. Two. Three.

And Meggie wrote.

:::

The Bluejay's mind was filled with blood and violence when Mo heard Meggie's voice.

He knew she wasn't in the castle with him, but he could feel her presence, so close, so close, like a whisper in his soul. It felt like a balm, soft and soothing, against the anger towards the Piper and his whispered threats about Dustfinger, against the fear for Resa, dressed in feathers and watching him from the roof beams, against the exhaustion that slowly filled his mind with fog as he cut page after page for Adderhead's new book.

Everything will be all right, she seemed to say to Mo, to the Bluejay. A powerful warmth that slowly but surely drowned out Orpheus' poisonous words.

But how? his soul asked, and he smiled to himself. For so long he had been the one telling the stories, Meggie's excited gaze on the book in his lap. But now she was the one holding the book, the one holding the pen and his pride felt like a physical being in his chest.

Tell me the end of the story, Meggie.

The door opened and a small figure entered the fire-lit hall. Jacopo.

With a few short steps he came over to Mo. Did he want to tell the Bluejay about his mother? Or had he been sent by his grandfather to see how the new book was coming along?

It wasn't until Jacopo passed him the book – the book with the blood-splattered pages – and Meggie's warmth sang through him once more he understood. Understood what Meggie had reawakened in Jacopo's heart. A feeling that had been deeply buried in the child's heart.

The love for a mother.

The short, broken-off crayon Jacopo had given him trembled in Mo's hand with every letter, Jacopo's and the Piper's voices a distant murmur to every shaky yet purposeful line.

One word. Two. Three.

And Mo wrote the Adderhead's downfall.