“Eh? Aye,” he answered. “Just to bring it to you.”
“You shouldn’t have. Never touch it! Never again.”
He stared at her, incredulity turning to anger. “What?” He stood up. “Sure that knock on the head is why you’ve forgotten the words thank you, so, you’re welcome. And while I’m saying it, you’re also welcome for your life. But by all means, I won’t touch your knife again.” He spun to leave.
Magpie sat up and opened her mouth to call after him, but dizziness overcame her and she clenched her eyes shut and clutched at the knife.
“I’d try to keep that close if I were ye, pet,” said a little growly voice, seemingly from nowhere.
“Snoshti?” said Magpie, looking around, and the imp marm pushed open the carved door of Nettle’s armoire and stepped down out of it, a cascade of Nettle’s clothes spilling after her.
“Who—?” began Talon. “What are you doing in there?”
Snoshti pushed past him.
“How did you get past the castle guard?” Talon demanded.
Hearing raised voices, Orchidspike, Bertram, Pigeon, and Swig peeked into the room. “Ach! Where’d she come from?” croaked Swig.
“Good-imp,” the healer greeted Snoshti, a bit perplexed.
“Lady Orchidspike,” she replied with a nod.
“Did ye come all this way in the storm?” inquired Pigeon warily. “Ye en’t even wet.” Gesturing to the imp’s shepherd’s crook, he added, “And yer beetles. I hope ye didn’t lose ’em in the forest.”
“Don’t fret, friend crow. My beetles are safe in my mistress’s garden.”
“Your mistress?” Magpie repeated, puzzled. “Who—?”
Snoshti smiled, and her black eyes glinted. “She’d like to meet ye, in fact. She’s waiting now, so we’d best hurry.”
“But—” said Magpie.
“Now, hold on—” began Bertram.
“It’s out of the question,” protested Orchidspike as Snoshti came forward and took Magpie’s hands in her little paws. “She can’t . . .” There was a soft sparkle in the room, and Orchidspike found herself speaking to an afterimage even as she finished her thought. “. . . leave.”
For a moment an impression of the lass and the imp hung in the air, but within seconds it had glimmered out, leaving no trace of them at all. Orchidspike, Talon, Bertram, Pigeon, and Swig stared at the empty place where they had been, and the only sound was the lick of the hearth fire and a click as Swig found his beak hanging open and snapped it shut.
The sensation was not unpleasant. Like a swirl of moths, the brief curious touch of many soft wings, then it was over and Magpie was standing beside a river, her hands still clasped in Snoshti’s paws. “What the skiffle?” she murmured, fighting her dizziness and looking around. The castle was nowhere to be seen. What manner of magic had carried her all the way to the Wendling? The river swept quietly by, shining in the day-bright radiance of a preposterous moon.
Magpie stared at the moon—she’d never seen so vast a moon—and at its dancing reflection in the river. Her wits sang a muddled warning and it took her several moments of staring to recall that, gloomy as it was, it had been day yet at the castle. And what of the storm? No rain hung in the air here. The grass beneath her feet was dry, and silver-blue in the moonlight. . . .
It came to her where she was, and she drew her hands from out of Snoshti’s paws and backed away, staring at the imp with wide, startled eyes. For this silver land could be none other than the Moonlit Gardens.
“Snoshti . . . ,”she whispered, “am I dead?”
TWENTY-FIVE
In the dungeon of Rathersting Castle, Batch Hangnail sat hunched in a corner with his big toes tucked into his nostrils for safekeeping. He hummed to himself and bided his time. Tattooed faces peered in at him from time to time through the little window in the door to his cell, and he pretended to take no notice of them. They brought him food and he ate it with his napkin at his neck as if he were a guest.
He seemed utterly unperturbed to find himself in a dungeon.
As soon as the guards left him alone, Batch stood, stretched, and ambled to the door. From his satchel he took the key he’d found in the mud at the bottom of the Magruwen’s well, and he slid it into the lock. It fit. It turned. The door swung open.
Such was the gift of serendipity, and a lifetime of such miracles had left Batch jaded by them. He simply closed the door behind himself and locked it again, then slunk away, singing under his breath.
“Where ye going? Where ye been?
Nighttime’s dark but morning’s grim.
Hurry where ye’re headed,
forget all that ye’ve seen.
The past is inescapable, the future’s just a dream. . . .”
He made his way through the subterranean passages, his nose and instincts leading him along the least traveled of them. He met no one. He climbed stairs, turned and turned again and, like a rat in a maze, he found his way.
Batch always found what he was looking for.
And he always found what he wasn’t looking for too. Those were the charms of a scavenger’s life, the unlooked-for pretties. This time it was a little pedal vehicle with side-by-side seats and a neat red-and-white-striped awning to keep off the rain. It hadn’t been driven since the chief’s old mum had passed to the Moonlit Gardens decades past, and no one even remembered there was a little door hidden in the yew’s roots that let it out into the world.
Humming, Batch pushed open the door and tramped down the weeds that choked and hid it. Then he climbed into the surrey and pedaled out. Once he’d gathered speed, a strange thing happened. Remnants of a floating glyph the biddy had long ago touched to her surrey awakened, and it began to rise gently into the sky.
Jaded or not, Batch’s eyes gleamed with a wild joy as he threw back his head and said, “Wheeeeee!!!”
TWENTY-SIX
“Dead?” repeated Snoshti with a snort. “Ach! As if I’d stand for that! Neh, pet, ye’re not dead. Just visiting.”
“B-but . . . ,” stammered Magpie. “It’s a one-way journey. Everyone knows that!”
“Do they, then? Do they know I come and go as I please? And so do all my kind, and so shall you.”
“But how?”
“ ’Twas my gift to ye at yer blessing ceremony.”
“I never knew I had a blessing ceremony.”