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the sand-colored stone.

There were eyes painted on the church door, narrow red eyes, and ugly stone demons the height

of a man stood on either side of the entrance, their teeth bared like savage dogs.

"Welcome to the devil's house!" said the bearded man with a mocking bow before opening the

heavy door.

"Don't do that, Cockerell!" the flat-faced man snapped at him, spitting three times on the dusty

paving stones at his feet. "It's bad luck."

The man with the goatee just laughed and patted the fat belly of one of the stone figures. "Oh,

come on, Flatnose. You're almost as bad as Basta. Carry on like this and you'll be hanging a

stinking rabbit's foot around your own neck, too."

"I like to be on the safe side," growled Flatnose. "You hear strange tales."

"Yes, and who made them up? We did, you fool."

"Some of them date from before our time."

"Whatever happens," Mo whispered to Elinor and Meggie as the two men argued, "leave the

talking to me. A sharp tongue can be dangerous here, believe me. Basta is quick to draw his

knife, and he'll use it, too."

"Basta's not the only one here with a knife, Silvertongue!" said Cockerell, pushing Mo into the

dark church. Meggie hurried after him.

It was dim and chilly inside the church. The morning light made its way in only through a few

windows, painting pale patches high up on the walls and columns. No doubt these had once been

gray like the flagstones on the floor, but now there was only one color in Capricorn's church.

Everything was red. The walls, the columns, even the ceiling, were vermilion, the color of raw

meat or dried blood. For a moment, Meggie felt as if she had stepped into the belly of some

monster.

In a corner near the entrance stood the statue of an angel. A wing was broken off, and the black

jacket of one of Capricorn's men had been hung over the other wing while someone had stuck a

pair of fancy-dress horns on her head, the kind children wear to parties. Her halo was still there

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between them. The angel had probably once stood on the stone plinth in front of the first

column; now she had had to give way to another statue, whose gaunt, waxen face seemed to look

down at Meggie with a supercilious expression. Whoever had carved it wasn't very good at his

trade; its features were painted like the face of a plastic doll, with oddly red lips and blue eyes

that held none of the cold detachment that the colorless eyes of the real Capricorn turned on the

world. But, to make up for that, the statue was at least twice the height of its living model, and all

who passed it had to tilt back their heads to look up at its pale face.

"Is that allowed, Mo?" asked Meggie quietly. "Putting up a statue of yourself in a church?"

"Oh, it's a very old custom!" Elinor whispered back. "Statues in churches aren't often the statues

of saints. Most saints couldn't have paid the sculptor. In the cathedral of—"

Cockerell prodded her in the back so roughly that she stumbled forward. "Get a move on!" he

growled. "And bow next time you pass him, understand?"

"Bow!" Elinor was going to stand her ground, but Mo quickly made her go on. "Who on earth can

take this circus seriously?" she said crossly.

"If you don't keep your mouth shut," Mo told her in a whisper, "you'll soon find out how

seriously they take everything here."

Elinor looked at the scratch on his forehead and said no more.

Capricorn's church contained no pews of the kind Meggie had seen in other churches, just two

long wooden tables with benches, one on each side of the nave. There were dirty plates on them,

coffee-stained mugs, wooden boards where cheese rinds lay, knives, sausages, empty bread

baskets. Several women were busy clearing all this away. Without pausing in their work, they

glanced up as Cockerell and Flatnose passed with their three captives. Meggie thought they

looked like birds hunching their heads down beneath their wings in case someone might knock

them off.

Not only were the pews missing from Capricorn's church, but the altar had gone, too. In its place

there now stood a massive chair, upholstered in red and with designs carved thickly into its legs

and arms. Leading up to it were four shallow steps, carpeted in black. Meggie wasn't sure why

she counted them. And, crouching on the top step just a few paces away from the chair, his sandy

hair ruffled as usual, was Dustfinger, apparently lost in thought as he let Gwin run up and down

his outstretched arm.

As Meggie came down the nave with Mo and Elinor, Dustfinger raised his head briefly. Gwin

climbed up to his shoulder, baring his tiny teeth, sharp as splinters of glass, as if he had

recognized the hatred in Meggie's eyes as they rested on his master. Now she knew why the

marten had horns, and why his twin was shown on the page of a book. She understood it all: why

Dustfinger thought the world was too fast and too noisy; why he didn't understand cars and

often looked as if he were somewhere else entirely. But she felt none of the sympathy Mo had

shown for him. His scarred face only reminded her of the lies he had told to lure her out to him,

like the Pied Piper in the story. He had played with her as he played with fire; with his brightly

colored juggler's balls: Come along, Meggie; this way, Meggie; trust me, Meggie. She felt like

running up the steps and striking his lying mouth.

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Dustfinger must have guessed her thoughts and was avoiding her eyes. Not looking at Mo and

Elinor either, he put a hand in his pants pocket and brought out a matchbox. As if unconscious of

what he was doing, he took out a match, lit it, and gazed at the flame, lost in thought as he passed

a finger through it almost caressingly until it singed his fingertip.

Meggie looked away. She didn't want to see him; she wanted to forget he was there. To her left,

at the foot of the steps, stood two drum-shaped iron braziers, rusty brown, with wood heaped

up in them: pale, freshly cut firewood, log upon log. Meggie was just wondering what the wood

was for when more steps echoed through the church. Basta was walking down the nave with a

gas can in his hand. Reluctantly, Cockerell and Flatnose gave way as he pushed past them.

"Ah, so Dustfinger's playing with his best friend again," he sneered as he climbed the shallow

steps. Dustfinger lowered the matchstick and straightened up. "Here you are," said Basta,

putting the gas can down at his feet. "Another toy for you. Light us a fire; that's what you like

best."

Dustfinger threw away the spent match and lit another. "So how about you?" he asked quietly,

raising the burning match to Basta's face. "Still afraid of fire, are you?"

Basta knocked the match out of his hand.

"Oh, you shouldn't do that!" said Dustfinger. "It means bad luck. You know how quickly fire takes

offense."

For a moment Meggie thought Basta was going to hit him, and she wasn't the only one. All eyes

were turned on the two men. But something seemed to protect Dustfinger. Perhaps it really was

the fire.

"You're lucky I just cleaned my knife!" spat Basta. "One more trick like that, though, and I'll carve

a few nice new patterns on your ugly face. And make myself a fur collar out of your marten."

Gwin uttered a soft, threatening snarl and wrapped himself around Dustfinger's neck. Dustfinger

bent, picked up the spent matches, and put them back in the matchbox. "Yes, I'm sure you'd

enjoy that," he said, still without looking at Basta. "But why would I want to light a fire just now,

I wonder?"

"Never you mind that, just do it. Then the rest of us can keep it fed. But make sure it's a large,

hungry blaze, not one of the tame little fires you like to play with."

Dustfinger picked up the gas can and slowly climbed down the steps. He was standing beside the

rusty braziers when the church door opened for the second time.

Meggie turned at the sound of the heavy wooden door creaking and saw Capricorn appear

between the red columns. He glanced at his statue, as if to make sure it still gave a flattering

enough image of him, then strode quickly down the nave. He was wearing a suit as red as the

church walls. Only the shirt beneath it was black, and he had a black feather in his buttonhole. A

good half-dozen of his men were following him, like crows following a peacock. Their steps

seemed to echo all the way up to the ceiling. Meggie reached for Mo's hand.

"Ah, so our guests are here already," said Capricorn, stopping in front of them. "Did you sleep

well, Silvertongue?" He had curiously soft, curving, almost feminine lips, and as he spoke he kept

running his little finger along them as if to trace them. They were as bloodless as the rest of his

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face. "Wasn't it kind of me to reunite you with your little girl last night? At first I meant it to be a

surprise present for you today, but then I thought: Capricorn, you really owe that child

something for bringing you what you've wanted so long, and of her own free will, too."

He was holding Inkheart. Meggie saw Mo's gaze linger on the book. Capricorn was a tall man, but

Mo stood a few centimeters taller, which obviously displeased Capricorn. He stood very upright,

as if that would make up for the difference.

"Let Elinor take my daughter home with her," said Mo. "Let them go and I'll try to read you back

again. I'll read you anything you like, but let the two of them go first."

What was he talking about? Meggie looked at him in horror. "No!" she said. "No, Mo, I don't want

to go away." But no one was paying any attention to her.

"Let them go?" Capricorn turned to his men. "Hear that? Why would I do such a crazy thing now

that they're here?" The men laughed. But Capricorn turned to Mo again. "You know as well as I

do that from now on you'll do whatever I want," he said. "Now that she's here, I'm sure you

won't go on denying us a demonstration of your skill."

Mo squeezed Meggie's hand so hard her fingers hurt.

"And as for this book," said Capricorn, looking at Inkheart with as much dislike as if it had bitten

his pale fingers, "this extremely tedious, stupid, and extraordinarily long-winded book, I can

assure you I have no intention of ever again letting myself be spellbound by its story. All those

troublesome creatures, those fluttering fairies with their twittering voices, the swarming,

scrabbling, stupid beasts everywhere, the smell of fur and dung. All through this book you kept

falling over bandy-legged goblins in the marketplace, and when you went hunting the giants

scared the game away with their huge feet. Talking trees, whispering pools — was there

anything in that world that didn't have the power of speech! And then those endless muddy

roads to the nearest town, if it could be called a town — that pack of well-born, finely dressed

princes in their castles, those stinking peasants, so poor there was nothing to be gotten out of

them, and the vagabonds and beggars with vermin dropping from their hair — oh, how sick I

was of them all."

Capricorn made a sign, and one of his men brought in a large cardboard box. You could see from

the way he carried it that it was very heavy. The man put it down on the gray flagstones in front

of Capricorn with a sigh of relief. Capricorn handed Cockerell, who was standing beside him, the

book that Mo had kept from him for so long, and bent to open the box. It was full to the brim

with books.

"It's been a great deal of trouble finding them all," said Capricorn as he reached into the box and

took out two books. "They may look different, but the contents are the same. The fact that the

story has been printed in several languages made the search even more difficult — a particularly

useless feature of this world, all those different languages. It was simpler in our own world,

wasn't it, Dustfinger?"

Dustfinger made no answer. He stood there holding the gas can and staring at the box. Capricorn

strolled over to him and threw the two books into one of the braziers.

"What are you doing?" Dustfinger tried to snatch them out, but Basta pushed him away.

"Those stay where they are," he growled.

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Dustfinger stepped back, holding the can behind his back, but Basta grabbed it from his hands.

"Why, it looks as if our fire-eater would rather let someone else light the fire today," he mocked.

Dustfinger cast him a glance full of hatred. Face rigid, he watched Capricorn's men throw more

and more books into the braziers. In the end there were more than two dozen copies of Inkheart

on the piles of firewood, their pages crumpled, their bindings wrenched apart like broken wings.

"You know what always got me down back in our old world, Dustfinger?" asked Capricorn as he

took the gas can from Basta's hand. "The difficulty of lighting a fire. It wasn't any problem for

you, of course, you could even talk to fire, very likely one of those grunting goblins taught you

how, but it was a tedious business for the rest of us. The wood was always damp, or the wind