“You been to the Magruwen!”
“The who what?” Batch asked. But Magpie had seen his eyes jump open at the mention of the Djinn’s name, and she knew. Vultures, master, and a trip to the Magruwen? It added up to one thing: this imp was in the middle of her mystery.
She nodded to Calypso to let him sit up. “Bold caper, imp,” she said, musing. “The Djinn King himself!”
“I don’t know what yer talking about!”
“However did you find him?” Magpie asked with a hint of admiration. “He’s been missing for ever so long! Sure someone must’ve told you where he was. A faerie told you, I guess.”
“Faerie!” he scoffed. “Faeries couldn’t find yolk in an egg! I found him!”
“For true?” Magpie asked with apparent delight. “You found the Magruwen? That’s a . . . a miracle!”
“It’s a gift,” Batch told her with a dignified sniff.
“Aye, I’ve heard tell. What’s it called, the . . . serenity?”
“Serendipity!” he corrected.
“Aye, that’s it!” Well Magpie knew what it was called: the serendipity, that gift of the scavengers that looked like eerie good luck. Batch and the scant handful of imps like him possessed the uncanny ability of finding just what they needed, just when they needed it. Reliably. That should have made them worthy allies in these times, but unfortunately they were also heartless, reclusive, nasty, and obsessive to the point of madness. They couldn’t even stand each other, which accounted for the very small number of them in existence.
On occasion faeries had tried to bend the serendipity to their purposes. Even Magpie’s parents had once enlisted a scavenger imp named Lick to help them find Amitav Ev, the lost temple of the Ashmedai. And he had found it. And looted it. And disappeared. To this day they had no idea where the ruins lay. They had learned the hard way that, whoever else might claim the title, a scavenger imp has but one master: itself.
But they were quite susceptible to flattery. Continuing in her innocent way, Magpie remarked, “I guess your master knew you were the only one who could do it, neh?”
“The only one!” he boasted. “There are ballads, ye know, missy, about the emperor of lost things! Sure ye’ve heard ’em? That’s me, Batch Hangnail, king of scavengers!”
“Well, I sure hope you got your share of the treasure!”
She wasn’t sure what response she expected, but it wasn’t the imp dissolving into a lump of moaning, sloppy woe. “T-t-treasure . . . ,” he stuttered with trembling lips, then started to bawl, his great nose leaking syrupy streaks down his snout.
Enough of this, she thought. “All right, you.” She shoved him with her foot. “I want some answers, d’you hear me?”
He went on bawling.
“Who’s your master? What is he? And where?”
His bawling intensified. He groped for the tip of his bejeweled tail and shoved it into his mouth, making little mew-ling noises as he sucked at it, like a kitten at its dam’s teat. Magpie exchanged looks of disgust with Calypso and Poppy, and then she just stood there, uncertain what to do next.
“Look . . . Batch . . . ,” she said finally. “Sure you had no choice. The hungry one made you help him.”
He cracked open one eye to peer at her, still snuffling wetly.
“And I’ll do what I can to help you—”
“Ha!” He gave a high, crazed laugh. “What could a twig like ye do? He got them warriors like a snack!”
“The Rathersting! With the tattoos? Imp, what did he do to them?” she demanded. “What does he do to them all?”
“One by one into the dark!”
Magpie sighed. Dark. Aye, dark. Hadn’t she seen plenty of dark in plenty of memories? “But what is he?” she cried in frustration.
Batch just shook his head and whispered, “Beast of night with flesh of smoke, wearing darkness like a cloak . . .”
“Jacksmoke,” she snapped. “Poetry. That’s about as helpful as nursery tales. At least tell me what he sent you to the Magruwen for. I know you went for treasure. What did your master want?”
A glint of malice lit Batch’s pathetic, slobber-slicked face. “Nasty cheat,” he muttered. “Cheating nasty meat . . . A turnip!”
“A turnip,” Magpie repeated flatly.
“A measly scorched nasty turnip! Waste of a treasure!” His eyes squeezed shut and his little fists clenched and unclenched, and he was such a picture of misery that Magpie found she believed him.
To Calypso she muttered, “What would a devil want with a turnip?”
Calypso shrugged. “Why would the Magruwen have a turnip?”
“Flummox me! Look, feather, let’s take the imp with us. I’m not through with him yet, sure he knows more than he’s saying, but if we don’t fly it’ll be dark before we can reach Issrin—”
“Neh, not Issrin!” cried the imp with such terror that Magpie knew Issrin was indeed the place. “Not there! Don’t take me there!”
“Why? Is he still there?” she demanded.
“Until the dark comes and frees him from the shadows . . . But the night is like a sea to him, to swim where he will.”
“Then we’d better hurry—” Magpie suddenly tensed, listening. Calypso knew the look, so he wasn’t surprised—but Poppy was—when Magpie suddenly whirled around and flicked herself fast toward the bushes. They heard a cry of “Miminy!” in a gent’s voice, and a tussle, and then a figure tumbled from the underbrush with Magpie leaping out nimbly behind. “Spy!” she growled.
“Poppy!” gasped the gent, and they all saw who it was.
“Kex!” Poppy cried. “What were you doing there?”
Kex Winterkill got to his feet, glared at them all, and brushed moss off his satin breeches, grimacing to see stains. “Ahem—” he said. “M’lady calls for you, cousin.”
Poppy let out a hiss of exasperation. “Tell her I’m busy!”
“Indeed?” he said, eyeing Batch with undisguised contempt and flicking unloving looks at Magpie and Calypso too. “Do you imagine she’ll be pleased to learn you prefer the company of low creatures to her royal self?”
“I don’t care what pleases her! Tell her I’ve no more potions for her!”
“Ach,” said Magpie. “Is her hair still—?”