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CHAPTER 65

MADE VISIBLE

You er kept saying it, again and again, and Mo kept shaking his head

"I have to find the White Book"

"Let me look for it I’ll write the three words Even I can write well enough for that!"

"No, that wasn’t the bargain Suppose Death coie all the same? I bound the Book, I must rid the world of it And the Adder wants to see you dead as ain"

"You only just found your way back into it last time"

How familiar the two of them sounded with each other Like two sides of a coin, like two faces of the sa about?"

They looked at Resa as if they both wished her far, far away Mo was pale, but his eyes were dark with anger, and his hand kept going to his old wound What had they done to him down in that terrible cell?

Dust lay like snow in the roo was so damp that it had crumbled away in places The Castle in the Lake was sick, Perhaps it was already dying, but on its walls la of a world that never was The room had two narros A dead tree stood in the courtyard below

Walls, parapets, oriel towers, bridgesa stony trap, and Resa wanted her wings back How her skin was itching As if the feathered quills were just waiting to pierce through again

"Mo what kind of bargain?" She caan crying Now at last she understood He was proht in a trap hter

He took her in his arms, but he wasn’t really with her He was still down in the cell, drowning in hate and fear His heart was beating so violently that she was afraid it ht break in his breast

"I’ll kill hiht to have done it long ago And after that I’ll look for the Book"

She knew only too ho he ently away from him and picked up his sword It was covered with blood, but he wiped the blade clean on his sleeve He still wore the black clothes of a bookbinder, although it was a long time since that had been his trade He er barred his way

"That’s your idea?!" he said "Very well, so Orpheus read the words, but you arethem come true!" He raised his hands, and fire wrote the words in the air, terrible words, all speaking of only one thing The Last Song of the Bluejay

Mo stretched out his hand as if to extinguish theers and burned his heart

"Orpheus is just waiting for you to co to serve you up to the Adderhead on a platterto read the words that guide your actions No one knows that better than I do, but they didn’t coive theo to Orpheus, I will I don’t knowdidn’t teach me that, but I can steal the books froain, we’ll look for the White Book together"

"Suppose the Adder’s soldiers find Mo here first?" Resa was still staring at the burning words She read theer passed his hand over the picture fading on the walls of the rooan to h not quite such a fierce one as Orpheus’s, but it will hohen the soldiers coive you ti place Fire will teach the Adder’s men to fear every shadow"

The ith its burning coat leaped off the wall and followed Dustfinger out

However, the words that had been written in the air were still there, and Resa read theain: