Inkworld - Plot Summary - Inkdeath

Inkdeath

Farid is the servant of Orpheus, and has been trying to convince the man to bring Dustfinger back from the dead. Orpheus agrees to read him back, but under one condition: Mo takes his place in death. Mo summons the White Women using words that Orpheus copied from Inkheart, and they bring him to the world of the dead, causing much commotion amongst those around him. In the world of the dead, Mo meets Death herself, and Death bargains with Mo. Mo must bring the Adderhead to death before Spring comes or Meggie and himself will die.

The book is good, the vicious herald of the Silver Prince and the servant of the Milksop, King of Ombra, where the characters are staying, kidnaps all of the children in the town and threatens to bring them to work to death at the silver mines. But Mo is returned to the world of the living with Dustfinger as well, and the two hatch a plan. Mo "The Bluejay" turns himself in to the Piper as his prisoner in exchange for the children, who are hidden by the Black Prince and his men in a cave. Violante, the Adderhead's daughter rescues him and brings him to the castle by the lake, where she used to live, because she wants the Bluejay to kill the Adderhead by writing the three words in the White Book, which Mo promised to heal, because he sabotaged it, and the Adderhead was rotting alive, in exchange for the children. The Adderhead goes after her while sending the Milksop after the children. The Black Prince however, learns of the Milksop's march, and moves the children to a giant tree in the forest, said to be a stronghold against giants, that was written by Fenoglio. They are attacked, but Meggie reads a Giantess out of Fenoglio's words, and they are able to fend them off, and kill Sootbird, the fire-eater who took Dustfinger's place. At the castle, the Adderhead's men followed a secret passage to the inside, and Violante's child-soldiers get slaughtered, the BlueJay captured, and Dustfinger killed by a Night-Mare conjured up by Orpheus, who is now the Adderheads servant. Resa shape-shifts into a swift, using magical seeds that were used by Mortola to shape-shift, before she was killed by the Adderheads men, and searches for the white book along with Dustfinger, who came back to life again. Dustfinger pretends to betray Mo, to earn the Piper's trust, but really was leading the Adderhead on in an elaborate plan with Bluejay and Violante. Under the Piper's supervision, Mo works on a new White Book, to replace the Adderhead's, as slowly as possible, for it is plain that the book should never be finished. The Adderhead's grandson, Jacopo, steals the White Book from the Adderhead and secretly hands it to Mo. Mo writes the three words and the Adderhead dies. A short skirmish takes place, Dustfinger kills the Night-Mare, and Resa and Mo kill the Piper. Meanwhile, the Adderhead's bodyguard Thumbling, steals all of the Adderheads possessions and takes off.

The last part of the book explains that Orpheus runs away to the cold mountains, Farid goes traveling as a fire-dancer, Meggie instead stays with Doria and rejects Farid. Resa gives birth to a child and it is a boy. The child tells the story in the last chapter and he wishes he could see the world where his father, mother and sister were born in as he thinks it is much more exciting than his own, because of the stories told to him by Elinor, who was read along with Darius into the book earlier on. The boy and Resa both turn into birds every few night, as a side-effect of the seeds, but all in all it is assumed that the entire surviving cast lives happily forever after in Ombra, with Violante as their queen.