She rose, took a step toward her name, and hesitated. Still with his finger, Dustfinger drew a fiery line like an arrow pointing his way. She came close to the bars and stared at the empty air, incredulous and baffled.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “You won’t see my face today, but it’s still as scarred as ever.”
“Dustfinger?” She reached into the air, and his invisible fingers took her hand. She was actually speaking! The Black Prince had told him she could speak again, but he hadn’t believed him.
“What a beautiful voice!” he whispered. “I always imagined it would be something like that.
When did you get it back?”
“When Mortola shot Mo.”
Twofingers was still staring at her. The woman Resa had been comforting turned to them, too.
Just so long as they didn’t say anything ..
“How are you?” she whispered. “How is Meggie?”
“Well. Better off than you, for sure. She and the writer got together to change this story for the better.”
Resa was clinging to the bars with one hand and to his own hand with the other. “Where is she now?”
“Probably with her father.” He saw the horror in her face. “Yes, I know, he’s up in the tower, but that’s what she wanted. It’s all part of the plan Fenoglio has thought up.”
“How is he? How’s Mo?”
Jealousy still gave him a pang. The heart was a stupid thing. “Said to be better, and thanks to Meggie he’s not going to be hanged for the time being, so don’t look so sad. Your daughter and Fenoglio have thought of a very clever way to save him. Him, and you, and all the others. . ”
Steps approached. Dustfinger let go of Resa’s hand and moved back, but the footsteps went past and away again.
“Are you still there?” Her eyes searched the darkness.
“Yes.” He took hold of her fingers once more. “We only ever seem to meet in dungeons now! How long does it take your husband to bind a book?”
“Bind a book?”
He heard footsteps again, but this time the sound died away more quickly.
“Yes. It’s a crazy story, but since Fenoglio has written it and your daughter has read it, no doubt it will come true.”
She put her other hand through the bars until her fingers met his face. “You really are invisible!
How do you do it?” She sounded as curious as a little girl. She was curious about everything she didn’t know. He had always liked that in her.
“Only an old fairy trick!” Her fingers stroked his scarred cheek. Why can’t you help her, Dustfinger? he thought. She’ll go mad down here! Suppose he struck one of the warders down?
But there was still that endless staircase to climb, and after it the castle, the wide courtyard, the bare hilltop – nowhere to hide her, no tree to conceal her. Only stones and soldiers.
“What about your wife?” Her voice was beautiful. “Did you find her?”
“Yes.”
“What did you tell her?”
“About what?”
“The time you were away.”
“Nothing.”
“I’ve told Mo everything.”
Yes, no doubt she had. “Well, Silvertongue knows what you’re talking about, but I don’t think Roxane would have believed me, do you?”
“No, probably not.” For a moment she bent her head as if she were remembering – remembering the time he couldn’t tell Roxane about. “The Black Prince told me you have a daughter, too,” she whispered. “Why didn’t you ever tell me about her?”
Twofingers and the woman with the tearstained face were still staring at them. With luck they believed by now that they had imagined the fiery letters. There was only a faint trace of soot left on the wall, and it was not unusual, after all, for people to begin talking to the empty air in dungeons.
“I had two daughters.” Dustfinger jumped as someone screamed somewhere. “The elder is around Meggie’s age, but she’s angry with me. She wants to know where I was for those ten years. Perhaps you know a pretty story I can tell her?”
“What about the other one?”
“She’s dead.”
Resa just pressed his hand. “I’m sorry.”
“Yes. So am I.” He turned. One of the warders was standing at the end of the corridor. He called something to another warder, and then walked on, looking sullen.
“Three weeks, maybe four!” Resa whispered. “That’s how long Mo would need, depending on the thickness of the book.”
“Good, then that’s not so bad.” He put his hand through the bars and stroked her hair. “A couple of weeks are nothing to all those years in Capricorn’s house, Resa! Remember that every time you feel like beating your head against these bars. Promise me.”
She nodded. “Tell Meggie I’m well!” she whispered. “And tell Mo, too, please. You’ll be talking to him as well, won’t you?”
“Yes, of course!” lied Dustfinger. What harm did it do to promise her that? For what else could he do to help her? The other woman began sobbing again. Her weeping echoed back from the moldering walls, louder and louder.
“Damn it all, shut your gob there!”
Dustfinger pressed close to the wall as the warder approached. He was a fat fellow, a hulk of a man, and Dustfinger held his breath as he stopped right beside him. For a terrible moment Twofingers was staring straight at Dustfinger as if he could see him, but then his eyes moved on, searching the darkness, perhaps for more fiery letters on the wall.
“Don’t cry!” Resa tried to calm the woman as the warder struck the bars with his stick.
Dustfinger could hardly find a corner to retreat into. The weeping woman buried her face in Resa’s skirt, and the warder turned with a grunt and trudged away again. Dustfinger waited until the sound of his footsteps had died away before returning to the bars. Resa was kneeling beside the woman, whose face was still buried in her dress, and talking to her softly.
“Resa!” he whispered. “I must go. Did they bring an old man down here tonight? A physician, he calls himself the Barn Owl.”
She came back to the bars. “No,” she whispered, “but the warders were talking about a physician they’ve arrested. He has to treat all the sick people in the castle before they shut him up with us.”
“That’ll be him. Give him my greetings.” It was hard for him to leave her alone in the dark like this. He would have liked to free her from her cage, just as he set fairies free in marketplaces, but Resa wouldn’t be able to fly away.
At the foot of the stairs, two warders were joking about the hangman whose work Firefox was only too keen to take over. Dustfinger slipped past them, quick as a lizard, but all the same one of them turned his way with a confused expression. Perhaps the smell of fire that Dustfinger wore like a second coat had risen to his nostrils.
Chapter 61 – In the Tower of the Castle of Night
You never came out the way you came in.
– Francis Spufford, The Child That Books Built
Mo was asleep when they brought Meggie to him. It was only the fever that made him sleep, numbing the thoughts that kept him awake hour after hour, day after day, while he listened to his own heartbeat in the draughty cell where they had put him, high in one of the silver towers.