Inkdeath

61. CLOTHED AND UNCLOTHED

It was easy to fly, so easy. The skill of it came with the body, with every feather and every delicate bone. For the seeds had turned Resa into a bird. The transformation caused painful spasms, which had terrified Lazaro the Strong Man, but she hadn't turned into a magpie like Mortola. "A swift!" the Strong Man had whispered when she flew to his hand, dizzy to find everything suddenly so much larger.

"Swifts are nice birds, very nice. It suits you." He had very gently stroked her wings with his forefinger, and it seemed so strange that she couldn't smile at him with her beak. But she could speak in her human voice, which alarmed poor Tullio even more.

Her feathers warmed her, and the guards on the banks of the lake didn't even look up as she flew over their heads. Obviously, they hadn't yet found the soldiers the Strong Man had killed. The crests on their gray cloaks reminded Resa of the dungeons of the Castle of Night. Forget them, she thought, as she spread her wings on the wind. That's in the past. But perhaps you can still change what's yet to come. Or was life after all only a tangle of threads spun by fate, and there was no escaping it? Don't think, Resa, she told herself, fly!

Where was he? Where was Mo?

The Piper has locked him up in a cage. Tullio hadn't been able to say just where that cage stood. In a courtyard, he had stammered, a courtyard full of painted birds. Resa had heard about the painted walls of the castle. From the outside, however, its walls were almost black, built of the dark stone also found on the banks of the lake. She was glad she didn't have to cross the bridge, which was swarming with soldiers. It was raining, and the raindrops made endless circles on the water below her. But her body weighed very little, and flying was a wonderful sensation. She saw her reflection underneath her. It shot across the waves like an arrow, and at last the towers rose to meet her, the fortified walls, the slate-gray roofs, and among them courtyards – gaping dark holes in the pattern of the stone. She spotted trees with bare branches, dog runs, a frozen garden, and soldiers everywhere. But cages…?

When she finally found them, at first she saw only Dustfinger, lying where he had been thrown on the gray paving stones like a bundle of old clothes. Oh God. She would never have wanted to see him like that again. There was a child standing beside him, staring at the still body as if waiting for it to move – just as it had done once before, if the songs of the strolling players told the truth. And they do tell the truth, Resa wanted to call down. I've felt his warm hands. I've seen him smile again and kiss his wife. But when she saw him lying there it was as if he had never moved since he'd died in the mine.

She didn't see the cages until she dived below the slate rooftops. They were all empty. No trace of Mo. Empty cages and an empty body. She wanted to let herself drop like a stone, hit the paving, and lie there as motionless as Dustfinger.

The child turned. He was the boy she had last seen standing on the battlements in Ombra. Violante's son. Even Meggie, who would usually take any child on her lap with such tenderness, spoke of him only with dislike. Jacopo. For a moment he stared up at Resa as if he could see the woman under the feathers, but then he bent over the dead man again, touched the rigid face – and straightened up when someone called his name. There was no mistaking that strained nasal voice.

The Piper.

Resa flew up to the ridge of a roof.

"Come along, your grandfather wants to see you!" The Piper took the boy by the scruff of his neck and pushed him roughly toward the nearest flight of steps.

"What for?" Jacopo's voice sounded like a ridiculous echo of his grandfather's, but it was also the voice of a little boy lost among all the grown-ups, fatherless – and motherless, judging by all Roxane had said about Violante's lack of love for him.

"What do you think he wants you for? He's certainly not pining away for your peevish company." The Piper thumped Jacopo on the back with his fist. "He wants to know what your mother says when you're alone in her room with her."

"She doesn't talk to me."

"Oh, I don't like to hear that What are we to do with you if you're no use as a spy? Maybe we ought to feed you to the Night-Mare! It's a long time since the creature had anything to eat, and if your grandfather gets his way it won't get to taste the Bluejay in a hurry, either."

Night-Mare.

So Tullio had told the truth. As soon as the voices died away, Resa fluttered down to Dustfinger. But the swift couldn't weep any more than she could smile. Fly after the Piper, Resa, she told herself as she perched on the stones, wet with rain. Look for Mo. There's no more you can do for the Fire-Dancer now, any more than you could before. She was only thankful that the Night-Mare hadn't feasted on him as it had on Snapper. His cheek was so cold when she pressed her feathered head against it.

"How did you come by that pretty dress of feathers, Resa?"

The whisper came from nowhere – out of the rain, the moist air, the painted stone – but surely not from the cold lips. Yet it was Dustfinger's voice, husky and soft at the same time, ever familiar. Resa swiftly turned her bird's head – and heard his quiet laughter.

"Didn't you look around like that for me before, back in the dungeons of the Castle of Night? I was invisible then, too, as far as I remember, but it's far more entertaining to be without a body. Although you can't enjoy the entertainment too long. I'm afraid if I let my body lie here much longer it won't fit me anymore, and then I suppose not even your husband's voice could bring me back. Apart from the fact that without the help of the flesh you soon forget who you are. I admit I'd almost forgotten already – until I saw you."

It was like seeing a sleeper wake when the dead man moved. Dustfinger pushed back the damp hair from his face and looked down at himself, as if to make sure that his body did still fit him. It was just as Resa had dreamed it the night after his first death, when he did not wake again. Not until Mo brought him back to life.

Mo. She fluttered up onto Dustfinger's arm, but he put a warning finger to his lips as she opened her beak. He called Gwin with a soft whistle, then looked up at the steps that the Piper had climbed with Jacopo, to the windows on their left and on again to the oriel tower casting its shadow down on them. "The fairies tell tales of a plant that turns human beings into animals and animals into humans," he whispered. "But they also say it's dangerous to use it. How long have you been wearing your feathered clothing?"

"About two hours."

"Then it's time to take it off again. Luckily, this castle has many forgotten chambers, and I explored them all before the Piper arrived." He put out his hand, and Resa perched on his skin, now warm again. He was alive! Wasn't he?

"I brought back a few very useful abilities from the realm of Death!" whispered Dustfinger as he carried her down a passage painted with fish and water-nymphs so true to life that Resa felt as if the lake had swallowed them up. "I can take off this body like a garment, I can give fire a soul, and I can read your husband's heart better than the letters you took such trouble to teach me."

He pushed a door open. No window let any light into the room beyond, but Dustfinger whispered, and the walls were covered with sparks as if they were growing a fiery coat.

When Resa spat out the seeds she had been holding under her tongue, two were missing, and for a terrible moment she was afraid she would be a bird forever, but her body still remembered itself. When she had human limbs again she instinctively stroked her belly and wondered whether the child inside it was changed by the seeds, too. The idea frightened her so much that she was almost sick.

Dustfinger picked up a swift's feather lying at her feet and looked at it thoughtfully.

"Roxane is well," said Resa.

He smiled. "I know."

He seemed to know everything. So she told him nothing about either Snapper or Mortola, or how the Black Prince had nearly died. And Dustfinger did not ask why she had followed Mo.

"What about the Night-Mare?" Even speaking the word frightened her.

"I slipped through its black paws just in time." He rubbed a hand over his face as if to wipe a shadow away. "Luckily, creatures of its kind aren't interested in dead men."

"Where did it come from?"

"Orpheus brought it here with him. It follows him like a dog."

"Orpheus?" But that was impossible! Orpheus was in Ombra, drowning his sorrows in drink and wallowing in self-pity, as he had been doing ever since Dustfinger stole the book from him.

"That's right: Orpheus. I don't know how he fixed it, but he serves the Adder now. And he's just had your husband thrown into one of the dungeons under the castle."

Footsteps could be heard above them, but they soon died away.

"Take me to him!"

"You can't go there. The cells are deep down and well guarded. I may be able to do it alone, but two of us would attract far too much attention. This castle will be teeming with soldiers once they discover that the Fire-Dancer is back from the dead again."

You can't go there… wait here, Resa… it's too dangerous. She was tired of hearing this kind of thing. "How is he?" she asked. "You said you can read his heart."

She saw the answer in Dustfinger's eyes.

"A bird will attract less attention than you would," she said, and put the seeds in her mouth before he could stop her.