The Book of Lies Read Online Free PDF

which remained still and silent on the table, though this time there was no doubt that it glowed a rich reddish-gold to match the sunlight outside in the courtyard.
    “I believe you,” he said at last. “But tell me: how did you come by your name?”
    “I don’t know. The name simply came to me, as though it had always been there, in my –” He stopped talking and turned in horror towards the book. It had opened again, hurrying to that same page, where it began to write everything he had just said.
    “Now I don’t believe you. Someone told you.”
    “No, sir!” Marcel insisted. “It’s true. I would never forget my real name.”
    There was no quill, no pot of ink, but the book recorded his words again. Lord Alwyn eyed him impassively as the book worked its telling magic. What could he do? The book knew he was lying, yet to tell the truth would betray Bea. He stayed silent and closed his eyes, waiting for a harsher magic to strike at him. The next few moments seemed like hours.
    Then he dared open his eyes and found the old man staring at him thoughtfully. “You need not be afraid of me,” he said, though that voice remained as hard as steel. “Not as long as you do what I say.”
    He turned slightly and called out to Mrs Timmins and Albert, who came scuttling through the doorway. “Listen to me, all three of you,” he said. “What I intended has somehow been foiled. All of the other children have heard his name now, and to alter the minds of so many would be too much for me. There is nothing else for it. You, Marcel, are to live here in this foundling home until I say otherwise. When people come looking for children to adopt they will not choose you. They will not even see you. No one must know there is a child here by that name. Do you understand?”
    He paused, considering whether words were enough to ensure obedience. Then his face became even harder. “If you take one step beyond the boundaries of this orphanage,” he told him ominously, “I will know and I will send my companion in the tower to fetch you.”
    He thrust his arm upwards, and at that moment a terrible growling erupted above them, building relentlessly until it exploded in a furious roar that turned their blood to ice.
    The old sorcerer did not wait for their promises. He rose from his chair and shuffled to the stairs, leaving Marcel to ponder what was so special about his name that it needed a savage beast to keep it secret.

Chapter 3

Old Belch
    A LL THE BOYS SLEPT in one room, and since there were seven of them, it was crammed with two large beds that could fit three boys in each, and a narrow cot for the seventh. The room at the end of the hall, Marcel learned, was reserved for sick children or for new arrivals who came in the middle of the night. Marcel found he was to share a bed with Hugh and Dominic, and though it was a squeeze he was too exhausted to care.
    In the morning, he was just another of the orphans who had to dress quickly when Albert called them and hurry down to breakfast before it was all gone.
    “I want you to help Old Belch today,” Albert told him.“Hugh and Dominic can take you along to the stables.”
    When the three boys reached the well in the middle of the courtyard, Marcel looked up again at the tower that brooded over them. The sight of those two small windows set in the stone put him on edge. Though he tried to shut it out, he heard that vicious roar again in his head and it sent a shudder through his entire body.
    “Have you ever seen it?” he asked.
    “Seen what?” responded Dominic.
    “The creature he keeps up there. The one that made that terrible noise.”
    “Never. We’ve heard a few strange things but nothing like yesterday.”
    In the silence that followed, each boy conjured a picture of the beast in his mind. They were about to walk on when Hugh let out a rasping cough, then asked, “What do you think he feeds that thing?”
    The other two stared at him. What kind of a question was