Inkdeath

76. WHITE NIGHT

The Adderhead was freezing. He was freezing even in his sleep, although he clutched the cushion to his sore chest, the cushion containing the Book that protected him from eternal cold. Even his dreams, heavy with poppy juice, couldn't warm him anymore. Dreams of the tortures he would inflict on the Bluejay. Once he had dreamed only of love in this castle. But wasn't that only right and proper? Hadn't the love he found here tormented him as much as his rotting flesh?

Oh, how cold he was. Even his dreams seemed to be covered with hoarfrost. Dreams of torture, dreams of love. He opened his eyes, and the painted walls stared at him with the eyes of Violante's mother. That damn poppy juice. This damn castle. And why was the fire back? The Adderhead groaned and pressed his hands to his eyes, but the sparks seemed to burn even beneath his lids.

Red. Red and gold. Light as sharp as a knife blade, and out of the fire came the whispering, the whispering he had feared ever since he first heard it at a dying man's side. Trembling, he peered through his swollen fingers. No. No, it couldn't be true. It was the poppy juice making him imagine them. Nothing else. He saw four of them all standing around his bed, white as snow – no, whiter – and they were whispering the name he had been born with. Over and over again, as if to remind him that he hadn't always had the skin of a serpent.

It was the poppy juice, only the poppy juice.

The Adderhead thrust a trembling hand into the cushion to take out the Book, to hold it up and so ward them off, but their white fingers were already reaching into his breast.

How they were looking at him! With the eyes of all the dead he had sent to them.

And then they whispered his name again.

And his heart stood still.