Inkdeath

81. LATER

Almost five months later a baby will be born at the lonely farm where the Black Prince once hid the Bluejay. It will be a boy, dark-haired like his father, but with his mother and sister's eyes. He will think that every wood is full of fairies, that a glass man sleeps on every table – so long as there's some parchment on it – that books are written by hand, and that the most famous of illuminators paints with his left hand because his right hand is made of leather. He will think that strolling players breathe fire and perform comic plays in every marketplace, that women always wear long dresses, and that soldiers stand at every city gate.

And he will have a great-aunt called Elinor who tells him there's a world that is not like this one. A world with neither fairies nor glass men, but with animals who carry their young in a pouch in front of their bellies, and birds with wings that beat so fast it sounds like the humming of a bumblebee, with carriages that drive along without any horses, and pictures that move of their own accord. Elinor will tell him how, long ago, a horrible man called Orpheus brought his parents out of that world and into this one by magic, and how this Orpheus finally had to flee from his father and the Fire-Dancer to the northern mountains, where it's to be hoped he froze to death. She will tell him that even the most powerful men don't carry swords in the other world, but there are much, much more terrible weapons there. (His father owns a very fine sword, kept wrapped in a cloth in his workshop. He hides it from the child, but sometimes the boy will secretly unwrap it and run his fingers over the shiny blade.) Elinor will tell him amazing things about that other world. She will even claim that the people there have built coaches that can fly, but he doesn't really believe that, although Doria has made wings for his sister, and Meggie really did fly from the city wall to the river wearing them. The boy laughed at her, all the same, for he knows more about flying than Meggie. That's because he sometimes grows wings at night, and he and his mother fly up into the trees. But perhaps he's just dreaming it. He dreams it almost every night, but he'd like to see the flying coaches all the same, and the animals with pouches, the moving pictures, and the house that Elinor is always talking about. A house full of books not written by any hand – books that are sad, because they're waiting for Elinor.

"Someday we'll go and visit them together," Elinor often says, and Darius nods. Darius can tell wonderful stories, too, about flying carpets and genies in bottles. "Someday the three of us will go back, and then I'll show you all these things."

And the boy runs to the workshop where his father is making leather clothes for books that are often illustrated with pictures painted by the famous Balbulus himself, and says, "Mo!" He always calls his father Mo, he doesn't know why, perhaps because that's what his sister calls him. "When are we going to the other world, the one you came from?"

And his father puts him on his lap and runs his fingers through his dark hair, and says, like Elinor, "I'm sure we will someday. But we'd need words for that, exactly the right words, because only the right words unlock the doors between worlds, and the only person who could write them for us is a lazy old man. What's more, I'm afraid he's getting more forgetful every day."

Then he tells him about the Black Prince and his bear, the giants that they'll go to see someday, and the new tricks the Fire-Dancer has taught the flames. And the boy will see, in his father's eyes, that he is very happy and not at all homesick for the other world. Any more than his sister is. Or his mother.

So the boy will think that perhaps he'll have to go alone one day, if he wants to see that world. And he'll have to find out which old man his father means, because there are several in Ombra. Maybe he means the one who has two glass men and writes songs for the strolling players and for Violante, whom everyone calls Her Kindliness, and who is much better liked than her son. Battista calls this old man Inkweaver, and Meggie sometimes goes to see him. Maybe he'll go with her next time, so that he can ask him for the words that open doors. Because it must be exciting in that other world, much more exciting than in his own…