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blew down the chimney. I know you long for the good old days, you miss all your chirping,

fluttering friends, but I don't shed a tear for any of that. This world is far better equipped than

the one we had to be content with for so many long years."

Dustfinger did not seem to hear a word of what Capricorn was saying. He just stared at the

gasoline and smelled its fumes as it was poured over the books. The pages sucked it up as

greedily as if they were welcoming their own end.

"Where did they all come from?" he stammered. "You always told me there was just one copy

left — Silvertongue's."

"Yes, yes, I told you all kinds of things." Capricorn put his hand in his pants pocket. "You're such

a gullible fellow, Dustfinger. It's fun to tell you lies. Your innocence always amazed me — after

all, you He very cleverly yourself. But YOU re too ready to believe what you want to believe,

that's your trouble. Well, you can safely believe me now. These," he said, tapping the gasoline-

soaked pile of books, "these really are the last copies of our ink-black home. It's taken Basta and

the others years to track them all down in shabby lending libraries and secondhand bookshops."

Dustfinger looked longingly at the books as a man dying of thirst might look at the last glass of

water in existence. "But you can't burn them!" he stammered. "You promised to send me back if I

found you Silvertongue's book. That's why I told you where he was. That's why I brought you his

daughter."

Capricorn merely shrugged his shoulders and took the book from Cockerell's hands — the book

with the green binding that Meggie and Elinor had been so eager to give him, the book for which

he had made his men bring Mo all this way, the book for which Dustfinger had betrayed them all.

"I'd have promised to fetch you down the moon from the sky if that would have done me any

good," said Capricorn, looking bored as he flung the last copy of Inkheart onto the pile with its

companions. "I'm happy to make promises, especially promises I can't keep." Then he took a

lighter from his pocket. Dustfinger was about to leap at him to strike it out of his hand, but

Capricorn made a sign to Flatnose.

Flatnose was so tall and broad that beside him Dustfinger looked almost like a child and, indeed,

the man took hold of him as if he were a badly behaved little boy. Fur bristling, Gwin leaped off

Dustfinger's shoulder. One of Capricorn's men kicked out as the marten shot past his legs, but

Gwin got away and disappeared behind one of the red columns. The other men stood there

laughing at Dustfinger's desperate attempts to free himself from Flatnose's iron grasp. Flatnose

thought it greatly amusing to let Dustfinger get just close enough to the gas-soaked books to

touch the top volumes with his fingers.

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Such malice made Meggie feel quite ill. Mo took a step forward as if to go to Dustfinger's aid, but

Basta barred his way, a knife in his hand. Its blade, narrow and shiny, looked terribly sharp held

against Mo's throat.

Elinor screamed and directed a torrent of curses at Basta that Meggie had never even heard

before, but she herself could not move. She just stood there, in numb and silent terror, staring at

the blade against Mo's bare throat.

"Let me have one of them, Capricorn, just one!" Mo cried, and only then did Meggie realize that

he had not been going to help Dustfinger but was thinking of the book. "I promise never to read

aloud a line of it that mentions your name."

"You! Are you mad? You're the last man I'd give one to," replied Capricorn. "One day you might

be unable to control your tongue after all, and I'd land back in that ridiculous story again. No

thank you very much!"

"Nonsense!" cried Mo. "I couldn't read you back into it even if I wanted to — how often do I have

to tell you that? Ask Dustfinger. I've explained it to him a thousand times. I myself don't

understand how or when these things happen. For heaven's sake, believe me!"

With a chilling smirk, Capricorn answered merely with a smile. "I'm sorry, Silvertongue, but the

fact is I don't believe anyone. You ought to know that by now. We're all liars when it serves our

purpose." And with those words he flicked the lighter and held its flame to one of the books. The

gasoline had made the pages almost transparent, like parchment, and they flared up at once.

Even the stout cloth bindings caught light immediately, the linen turning black as the flames

licked around it.

When the third book caught fire, Dustfinger kicked Flatnose's kneecap so hard the man

screamed with pain and let go of him. Nimble as his marten, Dustfinger wriggled out of those

powerful arms and stumbled toward the braziers. Without hesitating, he reached into the

flames, but the book he plucked out was already burning like a torch. Dustfinger dropped it on

the flagstone floor and reached into the fire again, with his other hand this time, but by this time

Flatnose had already grasped him by the collar and was shaking him so roughly that Dustfinger

was gasping for air.

"Look at the lunatic!" sneered Basta as Dustfinger stared at his hands, his face distorted with

pain. "Can anyone explain what he wants so much? Maybe those ugly goblin girls who thought

him so wonderful when he juggled in the marketplace? Or the filthy hovels where he lived with

other vagabonds? They smelled even worse than the backpack he carries that stinking marten

around in."

Capricorn's men laughed as the books slowly crumpled into ashes. There was still a smell of

gasoline in the church, such an acrid smell that it made Meggie cough. Mo put a protective arm

around her shoulders, as if Basta had threatened her rather than him. But who, thought Meggie,

who could protect Mo?

Elinor was looking at his neck as anxiously as if she feared Basta's knife may have left its mark

there after all. "These fellows are out of their minds!" she whispered. "You know what they say:

When people start burning books they'll soon burn human beings. Suppose we're next to find

ourselves on a pyre?"

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Basta seemed to hear what she was saying. He caught her eye, and with a twisted smile, kissed

the blade of his knife. Elinor fell silent, as if she had swallowed her tongue.

Capricorn had taken a snow-white handkerchief from his pocket. He cleaned his fingers with it

carefully, as if to wipe the memory of Inkheart off his hands. "Well, that's done at last," he

remarked with a final nod at the smoking embers. Then, with a satisfied expression on his face,

he climbed up to the chair that had replaced the altar. Capricorn sank into its red upholstery

with a deep sigh.

"Dustfinger, go to the kitchen and get Mortola to put something on your burns," he ordered in a

commanding voice. "You'll be no use for anything without the use of your hands."

Dustfinger looked at Mo for a long time before obeying this order. Head bent, with unsteady

steps, he walked past Capricorn's men. The way to the church porch seemed endless. For a

moment, as Dustfinger opened the door, bright sunlight shone into the building. As it closed

behind him, Meggie, Mo, and Elinor were left with Capricorn and his men — and the reek of gas

and burnt paper.

"And now let's come to you, Silvertongue!" said Capricorn, stretching his legs. He was wearing

black boots. He examined the gleaming leather with satisfaction, removing a scrap of charred

paper from the toe of one boot. "Until now I, Basta, and the unfortunate Dustfinger are the only

evidence that you can conjure up extraordinary magic out of little black letters. You yourself

don't seem to trust your gift, if we're to believe you — which, as I was saying just now, I don't.

On the contrary, I think you are a master of your craft, and I can scarcely wait for you to give us

another taste of your skill at long last. Cockerell!" His voice sounded irritated. "Where's the

reader? Didn't I tell you to bring him?"

Cockerell stroked his beard nervously. "He was still busy choosing books," he stammered. "I'll

get him right away." And with a hasty bow, he limped off.

Capricorn began drumming his fingers on the arms of his chair. "No doubt you've already heard

that I had to resort to the services of another reader while you were hiding from me so

successfully," he said to Mo. "I found him by chance five years ago, but he's useless. You only

have to look at Flatnose's face." Flatnose lowered his head, embarrassed, when all eyes turned

on him. "And Cockerell owes him his limp, too. As for the girls he read out of his books for me,

you should have seen them, It'd give a man nightmares just to see their faces. Finally, I had him

read to me only when I felt like amusing myself with his monsters, and I actually found my men

in this world of yours, just by recruiting them when they were still young. There's a lonely boy

who likes to play with fire in almost every village." Smiling, he inspected his fingernails like a

satisfied cat examining its claws. "I've told the reader to find the right books for you. At least the

poor fool does know his way around books — he lives in them like one of those pale worms that

feed on paper."

"And just what am I supposed to read out of his books for you?" Mo's voice sounded bitter. "A

few monsters, a couple of human horrors to suit the present company?" He nodded in Basta's

direction.

"For heaven's sake, Mortimer, don't put ideas into his head!" whispered Elinor, with a nervous

glance at Capricorn.

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But Capricorn merely flicked some ash off his pants and smiled. "No, thank you, Silvertongue,"

he said. "I have enough men, and as for the monsters, well, perhaps we'll get around to them

later. For the time being we're doing very well with Basta's trained dogs and the local snakes.

They make excellent and deadly presents. No, Silvertongue, all I want today as a test of your skill

is gold. I have such an appetite for money! My men do their best to squeeze all that can be

squeezed out of this part of the country." At these words from Capricorn, Basta lovingly stroked

his knife. "But it's never enough for all the wonderful things that can be bought in this infinitely

wide world of yours. A world of so many pages, Silvertongue, so very many pages, and I want to

write my name on every one of them."

"In what kind of letters?" inquired Mo. "Is Basta going to scratch them into the paper with his

knife?"

"Oh, Basta can't write," replied Capricorn calmly. "None of my men can either read or write. I've

forbidden them to learn. But I got one of my maidservants to teach me how to read. And when

there's something to be written the reader does it. So, you see, my dear Silvertongue, I can make

my mark on your world."

The church door opened as if Cockerell had just been waiting for this cue. The man he ushered in

had his head hunched between his shoulders and looked neither right nor left as he followed

Cockerell. He was small and thin and couldn't be any older than Mo, but his back was bent like

an old man's, and his arms and legs moved awkwardly, as if he didn't quite know what to do

with them. He kept nervously adjusting his glasses. The frame was held together over the bridge

of his nose with sticky tape, as if it had often been broken. He was clutching a number of books

to his chest with his left arm as if they offered some protection from the stares turned on him

from all sides and the sinister place to which he had been brought.

When the two men eventually reached the foot of the steps, Cockerell dug an elbow into his

companion's ribs, and the bowed so hurriedly that two of the books fell to the floor.

He was quick to snatch them up and bowed to Capricorn a second time.

"We've been waiting for you, Darius!" said Capricorn. "I trust you've found what I wanted."

"Oh yes, yes!" stammered Darius, casting an almost reverent glance at Mo. "Is that him?"

"Yes. Show him the books you've chosen."

Darius nodded and bowed again, this time to Mo. "These — these are all stories with treasure in

them," he stammered. "Finding them wasn't as easy as I had expected," he added, with the

faintest note of reproach in his voice. "After all, there aren't so many books in this village. And

however often I ask no one brings me any more, or if they do the books are useless. But never

mind that — here they are. I think you'll be happy with my choice, anyway." He knelt down on

the floor in front of Mo and began setting out the books side by side, so Mo could read the titles.

The very first one alarmed Meggie. Treasure Island. She looked uneasily at Mo. Not that one, she

thought. Not that book, Mo. But Mo had already picked up another book: Tales From the

Thousand and One Nights.

"I think this will do," he said. "There's sure to be plenty of gold in those stories. But I'm warning

you again, I don't know what will happen. Because it never does happen when I want it to. I

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