What was it she heard in his voice? A lie? He’d changed since Mortola all but killed him. He was more reserved and often as abstracted as if part of him had been left behind in the cave where he had almost died, or in the tower prison in the Castle of Night.
"Where are you going? I’ll come with you." Meggie felt him start nervously as she put her arm through his. "What’s the matter?"
"Nothing, nothing at all." He picked at his black sleeve and avoided her eyes.
"You’ve been out with the Prince again. I saw him in the farmyard last night. What happened?"
"It’s nothing, Meggie. Really it isn’t." He stroked her hair, an absent expression on his face, then turned and made for the bakehouse.
"Nothing at all?" Meggie followed him. The doorway was so low that Mo had to bend his head. "Where did you get those black clothes?"
"It’s a bookbinder’s outfit. Battista made it for me."
He went over to the table where he worked. Some leather lay on it, a few sheets of parchment, some thread, a knife, and the slim volume into which he had bound Resa’s drawings over the last few weeks: pictures of fairies, fire-elves, and glass men, of the Black Prince and the Strong Man, Battista, and Roxane. There was one of Farid, too. The book was tied up as if Mo were taking it with him. The book, the black clothes. . .
Oh, she knew him so well.
"No, Mo!" Meggie snatched the book away and hid it behind her back. He might be able to deceive Resa but he couldn’t deceive her.
"What is it?" He was trying really hard to look as if he had no idea what she meant.
He was better at pretending than he used to be.
"You’re planning to go to Ombra to see Balbulus. Are you out of your mind? It’s far too dangerous!"
For a moment Mo actually considered telling her more lies, but then he sighed. "All right, I still can’t fool you! I thought it might be easier now that you’re almost grown-up. Stupid of me.
He put his arms around her and gently removed the book from her hands. "Yes, I want to see Balbulus. Before the books you’ve told me so much about are sold.
Fenoglio will smuggle me into the castle as a bookbinder. How many casks of wine do you think the Milksop can buy for a book? They say half the library’s gone already to pay for his banquets!"
"Mo, it’s too dangerous! Suppose someone recognizes you?"
"Who? No one in Ombra has ever seen me.
"One of the soldiers could remember you from the dungeon in the Castle of Night.
And they say Sootbird’s in Ombra, too! A few black clothes aren’t likely to deceive him."
"Oh, come on! When Sootbird last saw me I was half-dead. And another encounter with me will be the worse for him." His face, more familiar to her than any other, suddenly became the face of a stranger — and not for the first time. Cold, chilly.
"Don’t look at me like that!" he said, smiling the chill away. But the smile didn’t linger. "Do you know, my own hands seem strange to me, Meggie." He held them out to her as if she could see the change in them. "They do things I didn’t even know they could do — and they do those things well."
Meggie looked at his hands as if they were another man’s. She had so often seen them cutting paper, stitching pages together, stretching leather — or putting a bandage on her knee when she had cut it. But she knew only too well what Mo meant. She’d watched him often enough practicing behind the farm outbuildings with Battista or the Strong Man — with the sword he had carried ever since they were in the Castle of Night. Firefox’s sword. Now he could make it dance as if his hands knew it as well as a paper knife or a bone folder for the pages in a book.
The Bluejay.
"I think I ought to remind my hands of their real trade, Meggie. I’d like to remind myself of it, too. Fenoglio has told Balbulus that he’s found someone to repair and present his books as they deserve. But Balbulus wants to see this bookbinder before entrusting his works to him. That’s why I’m going to ride to the castle and prove that I know my craft as well as he knows his. It’s your own fault I can’t wait to see his workshop with my own eyes at last! Do you remember all you told me about Balbulus and his brushes and pens, up in the tower of the Castle of Night?" He imitated her voice. "He’s an illuminator, Mo! In Ombra Castle! The best of them all.
You should see his brushes and his paints."
"Yes," she whispered. "Yes, I remember." She even remembered what he had replied: I’d really like to see those brushes. But she also remembered how afraid she had been for him back then.
"Does Resa know where you’re going?" She put her hand on his chest, where there was only a scar now as a reminder that he had almost died.
He didn’t need to answer. His guilty look said clearly enough that he hadn’t told her mother anything about his plans. Meggie looked at the tools lying on the table.
Maybe he was right. Maybe it was time to remind his hands of their trade. Maybe he could also play that part in this world, the part that he’d loved so much in the other one, even if it was said that the Milksop considered books even more unnecessary than boils on the face. But Ombra belonged to the Adderhead. His soldiers were everywhere. Suppose one of them recognized the man who had been their dark lord’s prisoner a few months ago?
"Mo . . ." The words were on the tip of Meggie’s tongue. She had often thought them over these last few days but never ventured to speak them aloud, because she wasn’t sure whether she really meant them. "Don’t you sometimes think we ought to go back? I do. Back to Elinor and Darius. I know I persuaded you to stay, but. . . but the Adderhead is still looking for you, and you go out at night with the robbers. Maybe Resa doesn’t notice, but I do! We’ve seen it all, the fairies and nymphs, the Wayless Wood and the glass men.. . ."It was so difficult to find the right words, words that could also explain to her what she herself was feeling. "Perhaps . . . perhaps it’s time.
I know Fenoglio isn’t writing anymore, but we could ask Orpheus. He’s jealous of you anyway. I’m sure he’d be glad if we went away and left him the only reader in this story!"
Mo just looked at her, and Meggie knew his answer. They had changed places. Now he was the one who didn’t want to go back. On the table, with the coarsely made paper and the knives provided by Fenoglio, lay a blue jay’s tail feather.
"Come here!" Mo perched on the edge of the table and drew her to his side, the way he had done countless times when she was a little girl. That was long ago, so long ago! As if it were in another story, and the Meggie in it a different Meggie. But when Mo put his arm around her shoulders she was back in that story for a moment, feeling safe, protected, without the longing that now felt as if it had always lived in her heart.., the longing for a boy with black hair and soot on his fingers.
"I know why you want to go back," said Mo quietly. He might have changed, but he could still read her thoughts as easily as his own. "How long since Farid was last here? Five days? Six?"
"Twelve," said Meggie in a miserable voice, and buried her face against his shoulder.
"Twelve? What a faithless fellow, Shall we ask the Strong Man to tie a few knots in his skinny arms?"