Fenoglio undid the bag at his belt and tipped a domed red stone out into his hand. “Isn’t it magnificent?” he asked. “I went to get it this morning while you were still asleep. It’s a beryl, a reading stone. You can use it like spectacles.”

“I know. What about it?” Meggie stroked the smooth stone with her fingertips. Mo had several like it, lying on the windowsill of his workshop.

“What about it? Don’t be so impatient! Violante is almost as blind as a bat, and her delightful son has hidden her old reading stone. So I bought her another, even though it was a ruinous price. I hope she’ll be so grateful that in return she’ll tell us a few things about her late husband! Yes, yes, I know I made up Cosimo myself, but it was long ago that I wrote about him. To be honest, I don’t remember that part particularly well, and what’s more .. who knows how he may have changed, once this story took it into its head to go on telling itself?”

A horrible foreboding came into Meggie’s mind. No, he couldn’t be planning to do that. Not even Fenoglio would think up such an idea. Or would he?

“Listen, Meggie!” He lowered his voice, as if the women doing their washing upstream could hear him. “The two of us are going to bring Cosimo back!”

Meggie sat up straight, so abruptly that she almost slipped and fell into the river. “You’re crazy.

Totally crazy! Cosimo’s dead!”

“Can anyone prove it?” She didn’t like Fenoglio’s smile one little bit. “I told you – his body was burned beyond recognition. Even his father wasn’t sure it was really Cosimo! He waited six months before he would have the dead man buried in the coffin intended for his son.”

“But it was Cosimo, wasn’t it?”

“Who’s going to say so? It was a terrible massacre. They say the fire-raisers had been storing some kind of alchemical powder in their fortress, and Firefox set it alight to help him get away.

The flames enveloped Cosimo and most of his men, and later no one could identify the dead bodies found among the ruins.” Meggie shuddered. Fenoglio, on the other hand, seemed greatly pleased by this idea. She couldn’t believe how satisfied he looked.

“But it was him, you know it was!” Meggie’s voice sank to a whisper. “Fenoglio, we can’t bring back the dead!”

“I know, I know, probably not.” There was deep regret in his voice. “Although didn’t some of the dead come back to life when you summoned the Shadow?”

“No! They all fell to dust and ashes again only a few days later. Elinor cried her eyes out – she went to Capricorn’s village, even though Mo tried to persuade her not to, and there wasn’t anyone there, either. They’d all gone. Forever.”

“Hmm.” Fenoglio stared at his hands. They looked like the hands of a farmer or a craftsman, not hands that wielded only a pen. “So we can’t. Very well!” he murmured. “Perhaps it’s all for the best. How would a story ever work if anyone could just come back from the dead at any time? It would lead to hopeless confusion; it would wreck the suspense! No, you’re right: The dead stay dead. So we won’t bring Cosimo back, just – well, someone who looks like him!”

“Looks like him? You are crazy!” whispered Meggie. “You’re a total lunatic!” But her opinion did not impress Fenoglio in the slightest. “So what? All writers are lunatics! I promise you, I’ll choose my words very carefully, so carefully that our brand-new Cosimo will be firmly convinced he is the old one. Do you see, Meggie? Even if he’s only a double, he mustn’t know it. On no account is he to know it! What do you think?”

Meggie just shook her head. She hadn’t come here to change this world. She’d only wanted to see it!

“Meggie!” Fenoglio placed his hand on her shoulder. “You saw the Laughing Prince! He could die any day, and then what? It’s not just strolling players that the Adderhead strings up! He has his peasants’ eyes put out if they catch a rabbit in the forest. He forces children to work in his silver mines until they’re blind and crippled, and he’s made Firefox, who is a murderer and arsonist, his own herald!”

“Oh yes? And who made him that way? You did!” Meggie angrily pushed away his hand. “You always did like your villains best.”

“Well, yes, maybe.” Fenoglio shrugged, as if he were powerless to do anything about it. “But what was I to do? Who wants to read a story about two benevolent princes ruling a merry band of happy, contented subjects? What kind of a story would that be?” Meggie leaned over the water and fished out one of the red flowers. “You like making them up!” she said quietly. “All these monsters.”

Even Fenoglio had no reply to that. So they sat in silence while the women upstream spread their washing on the rocks to dry. It was still warm in the sun, in spite of the faded flowers that the river kept bringing in to the bank.

Fenoglio broke the silence at last. “Please, Meggie!” he said. “Just this once. If you help me to get back in control of this story I’ll write you the most wonderful words to take you home again –

whenever you like! Or if you change your mind because you like my world better, then I’ll bring your father here for you, and your mother . . and even that bookworm woman, though from all you tell me she sounds like a frightful person!”

That made Meggie laugh. Yes, Elinor would like it here, she thought, and she was sure Resa would like to see the place again. But not Mo. No, never.

She suddenly stood up and smoothed down her dress.

Looking up at the castle, she imagined what it would be like if the Adderhead with his salamander gaze ruled up there. She hadn’t even liked the Laughing Prince much.

“Meggie, believe me,” said Fenoglio, “you’d be doing something truly good. You’d be giving a son back to his father, a husband back to his wife, a father back to his child – yes, I know he’s not a particularly nice child, but all the same! And you’d be helping to thwart the Adderhead’s plans.

Surely that’s an honorable thing to do? Please, Meggie!” He looked at her almost imploringly.

“Help me. It’s my story, after all! Believe me, I know what’s best for it! Lend me your voice just once more!”

Lend me your voice . . Meggie was still looking up at the castle, but she no longer saw the towers and the black banners. She was seeing the Shadow, and Capricorn lying dead in the dust. “All right, I’ll think about it,” she said. “But now Farid is waiting for me.”

Fenoglio looked at her with as much surprise as if she had suddenly sprouted wings. “Oh, is he indeed?” There was no mistaking the disapproval in his voice. “But I was going to go up to the castle with you to take Her Ugliness the beryl. I wanted you to hear what she has to say about Cosimo. . ”

“I promised him!” They had agreed to meet outside the city gates so that Farid wouldn’t have to pass the guards.

“You promised? Well, never mind. You wouldn’t be the first girl to keep a suitor waiting.”

“He is not my suitor!”

“Glad to hear it! Since your father isn’t here, it’s up to me to keep an eye on you, after all.”