The Adderhead laughed. His breath whistled. "Invulnerable? I’ll show you just how invulnerable he is once I’ve caught him again. I’ll give you a knife and you can find out for yourself."
"But you won’t catch him."
The Adderhead smacked his hand down in the bath of blood, splashing Jacopo’s pale tunic with red. "Watch out. You’re getting more and more like your mother."
Jacopo seemed to be wondering whether this was a good thing or not.
Where was the White Book? Resa looked around her. Chests, clothes thrown over a chair, the bed untidy. The Adderhead slept poorly. Where did he hide it? His life depended on the Book, his immortal life. Resa looked for a casket, perhaps a precious cloth in which it was wrapped, even though it stank and was rotting. . . but suddenly the room went completely dark, so dark that only sounds remained: the splashing of the bloody water, the soldiers breathing hard, Jacopo’s cry of alarm.
"What’s that?"
Dustfinger’s sparks had suddenly died down. Resa felt the bird’s heart in her breast beating even faster than usual. What had happened? Something must have happened, and it couldn’t be anything good.
One of the soldiers lit a torch, putting his hand around the flame to keep it from dazzling his master.
"At last!" The Adderhead’s voice sounded both relieved and surprised. He waved to the servants, and they went on pouring the contents of their buckets over his itching skin. Where had they caught all the fairies? Fairies slept at this time of year.
The door opened as if the story itself were answering her, and Orpheus came in.
"Well?" he asked with a deep bow. "Were there enough fairies, Your Highness? Or shall I get you some more?"
"This will do for the time being." The Adderhead filled his hands with the red water and dipped his face into it. "Do you have anything to do with the fire going out?"
"Do I have anything to do with it?" Orpheus smiled with such self-satisfaction that Resa longed to fly down and peck his pale face to pieces with her beak. "I do indeed," he went on. "I’ve persuaded the Fire-Dancer to change sides."
No. It couldn’t be true. He was lying.
The bird in her pecked at a fly, and Jacopo looked up. Keep your head down, Resa, she told herself, even though it’s dark. She wished the feathers on her breast and throat weren’t so white.
"Good. But I hope you didn’t promise him any reward for it!" The Adderhead plunged deep into the bloody water. "He’s made me a laughingstock to my men. I want to see him dead, and dead beyond recall this time. But that can wait. What about the Bluejay?" "The Fire-Dancer will lead us to him. For no reward at all." The words were terrible enough, but the beauty of Orpheus’s voice made them even worse. "He’ll lay a trail of flames, and your soldiers will only have to follow it."
No. No. Resa began trembling. Dustfinger surely hadn’t betrayed Mo again. No.
A suppressed cry came from her bird-breast, and Jacopo looked up at her again. But even if he did see her, there was nothing there but a trembling swift lost in the dark human world.
"Is everything ready for the Bluejay to set to work at once?" asked Orpheus. "The sooner he’s finished, the sooner you can kill him."
Oh, Meggie, what kind of being did you read here? Resa thought desperately. With his shining glasses and flatteringly beautiful voice, Orpheus seemed to her like a demon.
The Adderhead heaved himself out of his bath, groaning. He stood there as bloodstained as a newborn child. Jacopo instinctively flinched back, but his grandfather beckoned him closer.