When Dustfinger finds a crooked storyteller who can read him back to Inkscape, he leaves his apprentice Farid behind. Farid seeks out Meggie and the two follow him back into the enchanted book. Although a year has passed, not a day goes by without Meggie thinking of Inkheart the book whose characters became real. But for Dustfinger, the fire-eater brought into being from words, the need to return to the tale has become desperate. When he finds a crooked...

As Bluejay--Mo's fictitious double--tries to keep the Book of Immortality from unraveling, Adderhead kidnaps all the children in the kingdom, and demands that Bluejay either surrender or doom the children to slavery in the silver mines.

Life in the Inkworld has been far from easy since the extraordinary events of Inkspell, when the story of Inkheart magically drew Meggie, Mo and Dustfinger back into its pages. With Dustfinger dead, and the evil Adderhead in control, the story in which they are all caught has taken an unhappy turn. Elinor, left alone in the real world, believes her family to be lost -- lost between the covers of a book. But as the winter comes there is reason to hope...

Now thirteen, Meggie "reads" herself into Inkworld, where she, her family, and the characters in the book face chaos and danger as the original creator of the world frantically tries to redirect the story.