Perhaps that’s something I ought to do, thought Fenoglio, ostentatiously turning his back on Signora Loredan. Write some more game here for us to hunt something easily brought down, with plenty of meat on it and a good flavor.

"Fenoglio!" She’d actually pulled the blanket off him! This was incredible!

Rosenquartz put his head out of the pocket where he had taken to sleeping and rubbed his eyes.

"Good morning, Rosenquartz. Get some paper out and sharpen the pens."

That tone of voice! Just like a hospital nurse! Fenoglio sat up with a groan. He really was too old to be sleeping on the floor of a damp cave! "That’s my glass man, and he does what I tell him to do!" he grunted, but before he knew it Rosenquartz was scurrying past him with a syrupy- sweet smile on his pale pink lips.

What by all the ink-devils was he playing at? The glass-headed traitor! How eagerly he did as she told him, whereas if he, Fenoglio, asked Rosenquartz for something, it didn’t arrive half so quickly.

"Wonderful!" whispered Signora Loredan. "Thank you, Rosenquartz."

Elinor. It’s not the name I’d have given her, thought Fenoglio as he forced his feet into his boots, shivering. Something more warlike would fit her much better . . .

Penthesilea or Boadicea or some such Amazon. . . . Heavens, it was cold in this cave, too! Can’t you change the weather somehow, Fenoglio? Could he?

As he blew on his cold hands, his uninvited visitor held out a steaming mug to him.

"Here you are. Doesn’t taste particularly good, but it’s hot. Coffee made from tree bark — you know, Rosenquartz really is a delightful glass man!" she whispered to him in a confidential tone. "Jasper is very nice, too, but so shy. And then there’s that pink hair!"

Flattered, Rosenquartz ran his fingers over it. Glass men’s ears were certainly as keen as any owl’s, which was why even with their fragile limbs they made such good spies. Fenoglio could cheerfully have stuffed the vain little creature into his empty wineskin.

He took a sip of the hot brew it really did taste nasty—got to his feet, and dipped his face in the basin of water that Minerva always left ready for him in the evening. Did he just imagine it, or was there a thin layer of ice on the surface?

"You really don’t understand the first thing about writing, Loredan!" he growled.

That was it, Loredan! That’s what he’d call her in future. It suited her much better than the flowery "Elinor." "For one thing, early in the morning is the worst possible time. The brain is like a wet sponge at that hour. And for another, real writing is a question of staring into space and waiting for the right ideas."

"Well, you certainly are very good at staring into space!" Oh, what a sharp tongue she had. "Next you’ll be telling me that tipping brandy and mead down your throat encourages the flow of ideas, too."

Had Rosenquartz just nodded in agreement? He’d chase him out into the forest, where his wild cousins would teach him to eat snails and beetles.

"Well, then, Loredan, I’m sure you’ve known all along how this story ought to turn out! Let me guess: I suppose a frozen sparrow told you the ending yesterday when you were sitting outside the cave, gazing at my forest and my fairies, totally beguiled by them!" Damn it, another tear in his trousers. And Battista had hardly any yarn left for mending clothes.

"Inkweaver?" Despina came around the wall that allowed him, for a few precious moments, to forget where he was. "Do you want any breakfast?"

Dear, kind Minerva. She still looked after him as if they were back in her house in Ombra. Fenoglio sighed. The good old days. . . "No, thank you, Despina," he replied, looking sideways at his other visitor. "Tell your mother that unfortunately someone ruined my appetite first thing today."

Despina and Elinor exchanged a glance that could only be called conspiratorial.

Good heavens, were even Minerva’s children on Loredan’s side now?

"Resa has been gone for two days, not to mention Snapper, but what was the good of leaving you the book if you’re just going to sleep the day away or drink bad wine with Battista?"

Dear God, how delightful this world had been when he hadn’t had that voice ringing in his ears the whole time!

"You owe it to Mortimer to give him a few words to help him. Who else is going to do it? The Black Prince is too weak, and Mortimer’s poor daughter is just waiting for you to give her something to read aloud at long last. But oh no, no. It’s too the wine is bad, the children make too much noise, how’s anyone supposed to write? You don’t run out of words when it comes to complaining!"

There! Rosenquartz was nodding again! I’ll mix soup in his sand, thought Fenoglio, so much soup that he writhes with stomach cramps like the Black Prince — and I won’t write a single word to cure him!

"Fenoglio, are you listening to me?" She was looking at him as reproachfully as a teacher asking where his homework was!

The book, yes. Resa had left it here for him. So what use was that supposed to be? It just reminded him how easy he had once found storytelling, before he put every word down on paper knowing that it could become reality.

"It can’t be all that difficult! Mortimer has done almost all the work for you in advance! He’s going to pretend to the Adderhead that he can heal the Book, then Violante will distract her father’s attention, and Mortimer will write the three words in it. Maybe afterward there’ll be a duel with the Piper — that kind of thing always reads well — I suppose the Fire-Dancer will put on a show, too, although personally I still don’t like him—and yes, you could have Resa playing a part as well. She could keep that horrible Snapper occupied, I don’t know just how, but I’m sure you’ll think of something. . . ."

"Be quiet!" thundered Fenoglio in such a loud voice that Rosenquartz, terrified, took refuge behind the inkwell. "What outrageous nonsense! That’s just typical. Readers and their ideas! Yes, Mortimer’s plan sounds really good. Plain and simple, but good.

He overcomes the Adderhead with Violante’s help, writes the three words, Adderhead dead, Bluejay saved, Violante ruler of Ombra —oh yes, it sounds wonderful. I tried writing it like that last night. It doesn’t work! Dead words! This story doesn’t like taking an easy path. It has other ideas, I can smell that in the air.

But what are they? I brought the Piper into it, I gave Dustfinger his fair share of the action, but then — something or other was missing. Someone or other was missing!

Someone who’s going to thwart Mortimer’s fine plan with a vengeance. Snapper?

No, he’s too stupid. But who? Sootbird?"

She was looking at him so anxiously. Well, well. At last she understood. But the next moment she was as defiant as ever. It was a wonder she didn’t stamp her foot like a child. She was a child, disguised as a rather stout middle-aged woman.

"But that’s all nonsense! You’re the author. You, and no one else."

"Oh yes? So why is Cosimo dead, then? Did I write about Mortimer binding the Book in a way that would leave the Adderhead rotting alive? No. Was it my idea to make Snapper jealous of him, and Her Ugliness suddenly want to kill her father?

Definitely not. I just planted this story, but it’s growing the way it wants to, and everyone expects me to know in advance what kind of flowers it will have!"