Inkdeath by Cornelia Funke Read Free Book Online

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