But Snapper, sitting under the trees with Gecko only a little way off, laughed hoarsely. "Your brother’s as big a fool as you!" he called over to the Strong Man.
"It’s his bad luck he doesn’t have your muscles, so I guess he won’t live to be very old. The Bluejay is finished! And what does he leave behind as his legacy? The immortal Adderhead!"
The Strong Man clenched his fists and was about to go for Snapper, but Doria pulled him back when Gecko drew his knife and rose to his feet. The two of them often quarreled, but suddenly they both raised their heads and listened. A jay was calling in the oak above them.
"He’s back! Meggie, he’s back!" Farid climbed down from his lookout post so fast that he almost lost his balance.
The fire had burned low, only the stars shone down into the dark ravine where the robbers had pitched their new camp, and Meggie didn’t see Mo until Woodenfoot limped over to him with a torch. Battista and the Black Prince were with him. They all seemed unharmed. Doria turned to her. Well, Bluejay’s daughter, his smile seemed to be saying, what did I tell you?
Resa jumped up in such haste that she stumbled over her blanket. She made her way through the crowd of robbers standing around Mo and the Prince. As if in a dream, Meggie followed her. It was too good not to be a dream.
Mo was still wearing the black clothes that Battista had made him. He looked tired, but he did indeed seem to be uninjured. "It’s all right. Everything’s all right," Meggie heard him say as he kissed the tears from her mother’s face, and when Meggie was there in front of him he smiled at her as if this were their old life and he had only been on a short journey to cure a few sick books not Come from a castle where people wanted to kill him.
"I’ve brought you something," he whispered to her, and only the Way he hugged her so tight and for so long told her that he had been as frightened as she was. "Leave him alone, will you?" the Black Prince told his men as they Crowded around Mo, wanting to know how the Bluejay had escaped from Ombra Castle as well as the Castle of Night. "You’ll hear the Story Soon enough. And now, double the guard."
They reluctantly obeyed, sat around the dying fire grumbling, or disappeared into the tents that had been patched together out of pieces of fabric and old clothes, offering only scant shelter from nights that were growing colder all the time. But Mo beckoned Meggie and Resa over to his horse and delved into the saddlebags. He brought out two books, handling them as carefully as if they were living creatures.
He gave one to Resa and one to Meggie —and laughed when Meggie snatched hers so quickly that she almost dropped it.
"It’s a long time since the two of us had a book in our hands, right?" he whispered to her with an almost conspiratorial smile. "Open it. I promise you, you never saw a more beautiful book."
Resa had taken her book, too, but she didn’t even look at it. "Fenoglio said that illuminator was the bait for you," she said in an expressionless voice. "He told us they arrested you in his workshop."
"It wasn’t exactly what it seemed. As you can see, no harm came of it. Or I wouldn’t be here, would I?"
Mo said no more, and Resa asked no further questions. She didn’t say a word when Mo sat down on the short grass in front of the horses and drew Meggie down beside him.
"Farid?" he said, and Farid left Battista, whom he was obviously trying to question about events in Ombra, and went over to Mo with the same awe on his face that Meggie had seen on Doria’s.
"Can you make some light for us?" Mo asked, and Farid kneeled down between them and made fire dance on his hands, although Meggie could clearly see that he didn’t understand how the Bluejay could sit there right after his narrow escape from the Milksop’s soldiers, showing his daughter a book before he did anything else.