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Chapters (53)
  1. Cover
  2. Dedication
  3. Chapter One
  4. Chapter Two
  5. Chapter Three
  6. Chapter Four
  7. Chapter Five
  8. Chapter Six
  9. Chapter Seven
  10. Chapter Eight
  11. Chapter Nine
  12. Chapter Ten
  13. Chapter Eleven
  14. Chapter Twelve
  15. Chapter Thirteen
  16. Chapter Fourteen
  17. Chapter Fifteen
  18. Chapter Sixteen
  19. Chapter Seventeen
  20. Chapter Eighteen
  21. Chapter Nineteen
  22. Chapter Twenty
  23. Chapter Twenty-One
  24. Chapter Twenty-Two
  25. Chapter Twenty-Three
  26. Chapter Twenty-Four
  27. Chapter Twenty-Five
  28. Chapter Twenty-Six
  29. Chapter Twenty-Seven
  30. Chapter Twenty-Eight
  31. Chapter Twenty-Nine
  32. Chapter Thirty
  33. Chapter Thirty-One
  34. Chapter Thirty-Two
  35. Chapter Thirty-Three
  36. Chapter Thirty-Four
  37. Chapter Thirty-Five
  38. Chapter Thirty-Six
  39. Chapter Thirty-Seven
  40. Chapter Thirty-Eight
  41. Chapter Thirty-Nine
  42. Chapter Forty
  43. Chapter Forty-One
  44. Chapter Forty-Two
  45. Chapter Forty-Three
  46. Chapter Forty-Four
  47. Chapter Forty-Five
  48. Chapter Forty-Six
  49. Chapter Forty-Seven
  50. Chapter Forty-Eight
  51. Chapter Forty-Nine
  52. Acknowledgements
  53. About the Author

The dreamer dreams and wakes in terror, feeling that the danger has not left with sleep, and they try to tell someone in the hope that they will offer comfort, but instead they look as though the dream has revealed some hidden madness. And the dreamer doesn’t know whether it’s the dream or the friend’s response, but the taste of fear never quite leaves their tongue.

And every dreamer has been the one to hold another and whisper, “It was just a dream.” A five-word lie we are all desperate to believe.

Dreams have magic deep within them – and my dreams feel like the most real thing in my life at the moment. And the stories too – they comfort me. I read the final story Mel received over and over every day, wondering if there’s something there that I’ve missed.

Until, towards the end of the summer Jack Minnow makes a new pronouncement. Mum tells me about it, sitting on my bed.

News has come to Minnow, he says, that the blanks are readying themselves for new attacks. This time, they threaten the one thing our people still have left: their marks.

Minnow has warned people to avoid being marked for the time being. Intelligence says that the blanks intend to poison our ink stores. They have already discovered one tainted batch, and Minnow says that it is indisputably the work of the blanks. Now that I know Jack Minnow likes to play around with people’s ink, I don’t know if I believe him when he blames Featherstone. I do know that all of this hurts the people of Saintstone horribly. They still have their books in the museum and now they lose access to new ink. Whoever is responsible for the latest ink ban, I have to admit it does have the flavour of one of Sana’s plans: her exquisite knack of pressing right where it will hurt the most. The only thing is, in Jack Minnow, Sana finally has an adversary that will fight back as dirtily as she does.

For Minnow has a solution.

He asks the new storyteller, a young man called Noah, to tell the story of the sisters. Mum says he told it badly; she doesn’t like the sound of his voice. At the story’s end Minnow comes forward.