Inkthorn the Drawn's Arc

Chapter 2 of 5

Inkthorn moved toward the neon anchor for two days, following the bright letter through the fog. The light never seemed closer, but he kept walking anyway. On the third night, he saw a figure approaching from the opposite direction. The neon letter had drawn something up from the ground. A castle of ice stood around it now, all sharp towers and frozen arches. The light from the anchor shone through the ice walls and made them glow blue. Near the base, a door leaked dark liquid—ink, he realized, pooling in the fog. His ink. The times he had tried to hold himself solid and failed, the edges he had lost reaching for the spell. The seeker, a woman wrapped in torn cloth, knelt beside the pool and placed a small leather purse there. An offering. Inkthorn stepped into view and felt himself start to rise into three dimensions. The spell pulled at him, trying to make him solid. He held it as long as he could. The woman looked up and her eyes went wide. She asked if he was the one who granted wishes. He told her no. He told her he was only trying to become real. The pulling got stronger and he felt his oldest lines starting to stretch. He could choose now—let the spell take what it needed and stay solid, or collapse back to the page. The woman was still watching. Waiting to see proof that magic worked. He let go. The three dimensions fell away and he collapsed flat again, back on the page. The woman's face changed. Not anger—something worse. Disappointment. She picked up her purse and walked away into the fog. Inkthorn stayed there by the castle, looking at the pool of lost ink. He had chosen to stay incomplete rather than let a stranger see him fail completely. Now he knew the truth: he was more afraid of being erased in front of someone else than he was of never being real at all.