"I see," murmured Meggie — and caught herself wondering what Doria would look like when he grew up. "That’s a lovely story," she said.

"I know," agreed Fenoglio, leaning back with a self-satisfied sigh against the tree he had described in his book so many years ago. "But not a word to the boy about all this, of course." "Of course not. Did you leave any more stories like that in your desk drawers? Do you know what will happen to Minerva’s children, and to Beppe and Fire-Elf?"

Fenoglio never got around to answering that question.

"Well, isn’t that wonderful!" Elinor was standing in front of them with her arms full of moss. "Tell me, Meggie, isn’t the fellow beside you the laziest man in this world— and any other? Everyone else is working while he stands here staring into space!"

"Oh yes, and what about Meggie?" Fenoglio retorted indignantly. "Anyway, you’d none of you have anything to do if the laziest man in all the worlds hadn’t thought up this tree and the nests in its branches!"

Elinor was not in the least impressed. "We’re probably all going to break our necks in those wretched nests" was all she said. "And I’m not sure if this is any better than the mines.

"Calm down, Loredan. In any case, the Piper wouldn’t want you for the mines,"

replied Fenoglio. "You’d get stuck in the first tunnel."

Meggie left them to their quarrel. Lights were beginning to dance among the trees. At first Meggie thought they were glow-worms, but when some of them settled on her arms she saw that they were tiny moths, shining as if moonlight clung to them.

A new chapter, she thought, looking up at the nests. A new place. And Fenoglio can tell me about Doria’s future, but he doesn’t know what his story is going to say about my father. Why didn’t Resa take me with her?

"Because your mother is a clever woman," Fenoglio would have told her. "Who but you is going to read my words if I find the right ones? Darius? No, Meggie, you’re the best teller of this tale. If you really want to help your father, your place is here beside me. And Mortimer would certainly see it just the same way!"

Yes, she supposed he would.

One of the moths settled on her hand, shining on her finger like a ring. This Doria has a wife who is said to come from a distant land, and she often gives him his ideas in the first place. Yes. That really was strange.

CHAPTER 54

THE WHITE WHISPERING

From the tower battlements, Dustfinger looked down on a lake as black as night, where the reflection of the castle swam in a sea of stars. The wind passing over his unscarred face was cold from the snow of the surrounding mountains, and Dustfinger relished life as if he were tasting it for the first time. The longing it brought, and the desire. All the bitterness, all the sweetness, even if it was only for a while, never for more than a while, everything gained and lost, lost and found again. Even the blackness of the trees intoxicated him with joy. The night blackened them as if to prove once and for all that this world was nothing but ink. And didn’t the snow on the mountain peaks look like paper?

Even so. . .

Above his head the moon burned a silver hole in the night, and the stars surrounded it like fire-elves. Dustfinger tried to remember whether he had seen the moon in the realm of the dead, too. Perhaps. Why did death make life taste so much sweeter?

Why could the heart love only what it could also lose? Why? Why. . . ?

The White Women knew some of the answers, but they hadn’t told him all of them.

Later, they had whispered when they let him go. Another time. You will often come to us. And often go again.

Gwin sat on the battlements with him, listening uneasily to the lapping of the water.

The marten didn’t like the castle. Behind him, Silvertongue stirred in his sleep.

Without a word, the two of them had decided to sleep up here on the tower behind the battlements, even though it was cold. Dustfinger didn’t like sleeping in closed rooms, and Silvertongue seemed to feel the same. Although perhaps he slept up here only because Violante roamed the painted rooms even at night as restlessly as if she were looking for her dead mother, or as if her sleeplessness would hasten the Adder’s arrival. Did any daughter ever wait so impatiently to kill her father? Violante was not the only one who couldn’t sleep. Her illuminator was sitting in the room full of dead books, trying to teach his left hand the art that his right had once mastered so superbly. He sat there hour after hour, at a desk that Brianna had dusted for him, forcing his unpracticed fingers to trace leaves and tendrils, birds and tiny faces, while the useless stump of his right wrist held down the parchment he had, with forethought, brought with him.

"Shall I find you a glass man in the forest?" Dustfinger had asked him, but Balbulus had only shaken his head.

"I don’t work with glass men," he replied morosely. "They’re too liable to leave their footprints all over my pictures!"

Silvertongue slept uneasily. Sleep brought him no peace, and it seemed worse tonight than the nights before. Most likely, they were with him again. When the White Women slipped into your dreams you didn’t see them. They came to Silvertongue more often than to Dustfinger himself, as if to make sure that the Bluejay didn’t forget the bargain he had struck with their mistress, the Great Shape-Changer who made all things wither and blossom, grow and decay.

They were with him now, their cool fingers stroking his heart. Dustfinger could feel it as if it were his own. Let him sleep, he thought. Let him rest from the fear that day brings him: fear for himself, fear for his daughter, fear that he’s done the wrong thing. Leave him alone.

He went over to him and placed his hand on his breast. Silvertongue woke with a start, pale-faced. Yes, they had been with him, and Dustfinger made fire dance on his fingers. He knew the chill that those visitors left behind. It was fresh and clear, pure as snow, but it both froze and burned the heart.

"What were they whispering this time? ‘Bluejay, immortality is very close’?"

Silvertongue pushed aside the fur under which he was sleeping. His hands shook as if he had been holding them too long in cold water.

Dustfinger let the fire grow, and then gently pressed his hand to the other man’s heart again. "Better?"

Silvertongue nodded. He did not push the hand away, even though it was still hotter than human skin. "Did they pour fire into your veins to bring you back to life?" Farid had asked Dustfinger. "Perhaps," he had replied. The idea pleased him.

"Heavens, they must really love you," he said when Silvertongue got to his feet, still drowsy. "Unfortunately, they sometimes forget that their love always leads to death."

"Yes. Yes, they forget that. Thank you for waking me." Silvertongue went over to the battlements and looked out into the night. "‘He’s coming, Bluejay.’ That’s what they were whispering this time. ‘He’s coming.’ But"— he turned and looked at Dustfinger

— "they said the Piper was preparing the way for him. What do you think they mean by that?"

"Whatever it means," said Dustfinger, stepping to his side, "the Piper will have to cross the bridge, like his master, so we’ll see him coming in good time." It still struck Dustfinger as strange that he could speak the Piper’s name without feeling fear. But it seemed as if he had left his fears behind with the dead forever.