He smiled and flew on.
It wasn’t how it had been in those young days in his father’s arms, though. He could still remember the feeling of swimming in sky, the way the air swirled and eddied around you, tangling itself in your hair, filling your mouth. The weavework of his falcon skin was like a glove, muting that sensation, so when a cool whisper of pure air hit his neck, he knew something was wrong. He remembered the lass’s djinncraft knife pressed to his throat and he swore.
“Bilge!” he cursed, trying to see the hole. “Skive!” But he had no more luck seeing his own throat than was to be expected, and he couldn’t pause to feel it with his fingers without dashing himself out of the sky. “Skiving blast!” he muttered, and he began to slow.
The crows and the lass were growing smaller in the distance, and the air hitting Talon’s throat was more than a whisper now; it was a steady flow. His perfect falcon skin was unraveling.
He knew he should turn aside and head back home before it gave out altogether and dropped him from the sky like a piece of windfall fruit. Where was the lass going, anyway? There was nothing down in southeastern Dreamdark but some recent Black Annis sightings and a whole lot of hedge imp warrens. It would be a long walk from here back to Rathersting Castle, long enough to catch him out after dark, and there were far worse things than the Black Annis abroad in the night these days.
He knew he should turn aside.
But he didn’t.
Talon Rathersting whooped, and all the years of longing, all the nights of standing on the ramparts wishing, poured into his arms and uncommon wings, and he surged forward and began to bridge the distance between himself and the crows. Within moments he knew they weren’t headed for southeast Dreamdark at all but beyond. Beyond. He caught a glimpse of the southern hedge and on the far side of it an immense roof, a tower, and land rolling away to the south in a vast patchwork.
The human world.
The crows had scattered and disappeared into the forest just short of the hedge. Talon approached with caution, landing on an oak branch from which he could peer over and up the tidy lawn and gardens to the human place. For a moment he forgot Magpie and the crows and stared at the gargantuan brick structure, its dozen chimneys, and the massive cattle grazing in the distance.
“Slap the slowpoke!” Magpie cried, suddenly dropping down from overhead and giving him a light cuff to the back of the neck. Talon nearly jumped out of his skin. Her hair was loose and wild over her shoulders, her eyes sparkled, and she was smiling. “A game we play,” she told him as a couple of crows fluttered round on the branch. “I’d smack you harder, but you didn’t know the rules so you get one pass.”
“Nice flying,” one of the birds said jovially, “but hoy, have a care for your skin, neh?”
“Aye,” agreed Magpie. “You’re undone.”
Talon parted the skin and it slid aside, revealing his face, neck, and shoulders. He examined the hole and found it to be as big now as his fist. “A djinncraft knife will do that,” he muttered.
“Ach! Did I do that?” Magpie cried, dismayed. “I’m sorry! I’d never want to wreck a thing like that.”
“I can mend it later,” he said, stepping the rest of the way out of it and folding it away into his pocket. He looked back out through the hedge. “The Magruwen’s here?”
“Aye, down a well over in the garden.”
“What is this place?” Talon asked.
“Just a school for human lasses to learn their books.”
“Humans can read?”
Magpie nodded. “Sure. They even write their own books. It’s funny about mannies. They’re no eejits. The things they can build, like bridges and ships? And they carve statues you’d swear could start breathing. But . . . they are eejits! All the killing! They’d as soon kill as look at each other half the time. But then I’ve seen ’em sleeping all scooched on one side of the bed so not to wake a little kitty. I can’t figure ’em. Ach, there’s one now.”
Talon spun to see, and he stared, transfixed. “That?” he asked, surprised.
“What, you’ve never seen one?” Magpie asked.
“Neh,” he answered, craning his neck for a clear view of the human lass. She had yellow hair braided back and wore a white frock and shiny shoes. “Doesn’t look like a killer,” he observed, “and she’s not so big as I thought.”
“She’s a real small one. Pretty too. They’re not all, you know. Mannies can be devious ugly. And the smell? Devils got nothing on an unwashed human!” They watched the lass for a moment in silence. She sat herself daintily on a patch of grass and began spinning the wheels of a little toy she’d brought with her.
“First one I ever saw wasn’t pretty at all,” Magpie said. “He was a great, gnarled, evil-eyed brute with a matted black beard and all reeking of brew. . . .” She realized Talon wasn’t listening. He was still staring at the human lass but he’d squinted his eyes and now he stood and leapt nimbly to a higher branch for a clearer view.
She followed him on wing. “What is it?”
He was still squinting. “That thing she’s got,” he said, not breaking his gaze from the lass.
“The toy?”
“It’s no toy. I know it well.”
“What do you mean?” Magpie squinted at it too.
“It’s my granny’s surrey, from the castle. I haven’t seen it since I was wee. How the skiffle did that come here?”
“I can guess how,” Magpie said, her voice hard, “but not why. That meat wouldn’t dare go back down the well!”
“Who?” Talon asked.
“Crows!” Magpie called, and they all fluttered round. She told them, “It seems that gobslotch of a scavenger is in the neighborhood.”
“Ach!” Pup puffed up. “That irkmeat?”
“The one who escaped the dungeon?” Talon asked.
Magpie nodded. “Talon, he’s vermin, but he’s cunning vermin. He was in service to the Blackbringer, though sure not of his own free will. His master sent him to the Magruwen for something; he said it was a turnip—”
“A turnip?”
“Aye, of all the blither! We need to find out what the Blackbringer was really after. Let’s find that scavenger, crows.”
“Now?” asked Pigeon, scratching his head. “What about the Magruwen?”