Free Inkspell by Cornelia Funke

must only use words that are already in the book, if possible.”
    “He said that?” Meggie’s heart missed a beat, as if it had stumbled over Farid’s information. You must only use words that are already in the book, if possible . . Was that why she’d never been able to read anything out of Resa’s stories – because she’d used words that weren’t in Inkheart ? Or was it just because she didn’t know enough about writing?
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    “Yes. Orpheus thinks he’s so clever because of the way he can read aloud.” Farid spat out the man’s name like a plum pit. “But if you ask me, he’s not half as good at it as you or your father.”
    Maybe not , thought Meggie, but he read Dustfinger back. And he wrote the words for it himself.
    Neither Mo nor I could have done that. She took from Farid the piece of paper with the passage that Orpheus had written. The handwriting was difficult to decipher, but it was beautiful – very individual and curiously ornate. “When exactly did Dustfinger disappear?”
    Farid shrugged. “I don’t know,” he muttered, abashed. Of course – she had forgotten that he couldn’t read.
    Meggie traced the first sentence with her finger. Dustfinger returned on a day fragrant with the scent of berries and mushrooms .
    Thoughtfully, she lowered the piece of paper. “It’s no good,” she said. “We don’t even have the book. How can it work without the book?”
    “But Orpheus didn’t use the book, either! Dustfinger took it away from him before he read the words on that paper!” Farid pushed his chair back and came to stand beside her. Feeling him so close made Meggie uneasy; she didn’t try to figure out why. “But that can’t be so!” she murmured.
    Dustfinger had gone, though.
    A few handwritten sentences had opened the door between the words on the page for him – the door that Mo had tried to batter down so unsuccessfully. And it was not Fenoglio, the author of the book, who had written those sentences, but a stranger – a stranger with a curious name.
    Orpheus.
    Meggie knew more than most people about what waited beyond the words. She herself had already opened doors, had lured living, breathing creatures out of faded, yellowing pages – and she had been there when her father read this boy out of an Arabian fairy tale, the boy of flesh and blood now standing beside her. However, this Orpheus seemed to know far, far more than she did, even more than Mo – Farid still called him Silvertongue – and suddenly Meggie was afraid of the words on that grubby piece of paper. She put it down on her desk as if it had burned her fingers.
    “Please! Do please at least try!” Farid’s voice sounded almost pleading. “Suppose Orpheus has already read Basta back after all? Dustfinger has to learn that they’re in league with each other.
    He thinks he’s safe from Basta in his own world!”
    Meggie was still staring at the words written by Orpheus.
    They sounded beautiful, enchantingly beautiful. Meggie felt her tongue longing to taste them.
    She very nearly began reading them aloud. Horrified, she clapped her hand to her mouth.
    Orpheus.
    Of course she knew the name, and the story that surrounded it like a tangle of flowers and thorns. Elinor had given her a book with a beautiful poem about him in it.
    Orpheus with his lute made trees And the mountaintops that freeze, Bow themselves when he 37
     
    did sing: To his music plants and flowers Ever sprung; as sun and showers There had made a lasting spring. Everything that heard him play, Even the billows of the sea, Hung their heads, and then lay by. In sweet music is such art, Killing care and grief of heart Fall asleep, or hearing die.
    She looked at Farid with a question in her eyes. “How old is he?” “Orpheus?” Farid shrugged.
    “Twenty, twenty-five, how should I know? Difficult to say. His face is like a child’s.”
    So young. But the words on the paper didn’t sound like a young man’s words. They sounded as if they