Magpie chewed her lip and said slowly, “He’s not going to just offer to help us. I got to convince him, and I want to know as much as I can know first. I got a feeling this thing the Blackbringer’s after is important.”
“All right, ‘Pie.” Calypso sighed. “But I want ye to wait here and have a rest whilst we search.”
Magpie rolled her eyes. “Feather—”
“Feather, nothing,” he said sternly. “Rest.” He turned to Talon. “Lad, ye’ll see to it?”
Talon looked back and forth between the stubborn faerie and stern crow. He shrugged helplessly.
“Good lad,” said Calypso, spreading open his wings. “We’ll have a look around. Come on, blackbirds!” The crows burst squawking from the trees.
As soon as they were gone, Magpie said to Talon, “Let’s go.”
“Go? Calypso said—”
“Ach, you think I’m going to sit here? There’s something else you should know. This imp? He was there when your folk met his master.”
Talon was still, his face frozen, staring back at Magpie. “Indeed . . . ,” he said quietly. Suddenly he stood. “What’s he look like, this creature?”
“Like a scorched rat with a great big nose, wears diamonds on his tail.”
“Think I’ll join in the search,” he said, and dove from the branch. He caught another with one hand and whipped himself around, jackknifing and shooting out past the bramble, where he dropped from Magpie’s sight.
Talon had never set foot beyond the hedge. He’d peered through it on the northern border of Dreamdark, where the land without was as wild as the forest within and no humans ever wandered. A few days ago he’d never have dreamed of venturing out into the world, even with a gang of cousins, and now he was leaping into it alone. What a change a few days could make, he thought, stalking through the grass.
But he wasn’t alone. “This way,” Magpie hissed, skimming up beside him. Together they darted into the shadow of the hulking school, Magpie flying low to the ground and Talon running, leaping. When he grabbed hold of a trellis post and swung himself wildly airborne, stretching headfirst and landing in a somersault to keep right on going, Magpie found herself grinning. She’d never known scamperers could move like that. She couldn’t help watching him and had to remind herself to keep her eyes peeled for imps and roaming mannies.
“There’s a kitchen garden past that fence,” Magpie said. “Let’s try there.”
Talon reached the fence first, and when Magpie landed at his side he slapped the back of her neck and said, “Slap the slowpoke!”
“Eh!”
“I’d smack you harder but you’re a lass,” he said with a wicked twinkle in his blue eyes.
“Ach.” She gave him a surly look and rubbed the back of her neck. “Don’t let that hold you back. The crows don’t. But you won’t have to worry—sure that’s the last time you’ll ever win.”
“Oh, aye?”
“Aye, now hush your spathering. See anything?”
They peered through the slats of the fence at the rampant mess of herbs within. Eyebright and lavender, sweet basil and lemon balm, a great jumble of shivering leaf and flower. A gnarled apple tree hung heavy boughs over a bench where a human lass sat shelling peas, and a dozen hens scratched in a sunny dooryard where another lass tossed out handfuls of grain.
Just then, another human came out the door. A mountain of manny she was, cradling in her arms a cat as gaunt as she was huge. She tossed it and it twisted in air, landing among the scattering hens with its ears flattened back and tail lashing. The human barked at it in her unlovely language and it skulked away, low as a weasel.
“That meat looks mean starved,” Magpie said, eyeing the cat warily. “Don’t let him see you. I don’t like his looks one bit. Come on.” They prowled through the fence into the garden, taking care to keep well hidden as they scouted for any signs the imp had been there.
When Talon came across a human’s abandoned shoe, it really sank into his mind where he was. He experienced a moment of wonder. He was in a manny garden! He felt as if he’d slipped into someone else’s life the way he’d slipped into his falcon skin. And watching Magpie prowl forth with the stealth of a fox, he thought he had slipped into someone else’s life: hers. Or at least, he was tagging along with it. Spying, hunting down devils, vanishing into thin air, visiting the Djinn King, racing with crows, all in a day? What must her life be like out in the wide world?
She suddenly drew back even with him. “Bless me if that’s not a shindy,” she said, pointing at the cluster of hens.
“A what?”
“A shindy. Look, see the featherless one?”
He saw it, a na**d chicken scratching among the rest. “Poor meat,” he said.
“Neh, that’s how they are,” she told him. “Wizards hatch ’em from rooster eggs they incubate in their armpits.”
“Rooster eggs?”
“Aye, shindies are mad rare. Wizards use ’em for servants. I’d guess his wizard’s passed on and he’s made himself at home here.”
Talon laughed and cocked his head. “You sure it’s not just a bald chicken?”
“Aye, and we’ll want to talk to him. Maybe he’s seen Batch. But skive, that cat’s keeping a cool eye over the place.”
They crouched side by side, scanning the garden with calculating eyes. There was half an open yard between the shindy and themselves, with two mannies and a starved cat standing by. Magpie clasped her fingers into fists, remembering Bellatrix telling her there was magic in her, and she smiled ruefully to herself. If there was, she had no notion how to summon it, not even to scare a cat, much less a monster like the Blackbringer!
Talon interrupted her thoughts. “I’ll go around the side and distract the cat, and you can get that shindy’s attention.”
“Eh? What will you do?”
“I’ll just make him a phantasm to chase,” Talon said. “It’s a clan spell; we use it to trick the spiders on raids, get ’em going the wrong way. Well . . . ” He colored slightly. “The others use it anyway . . . on raids.”
Magpie was on the verge of telling him she’d handle it herself when she realized that was probably the story of his life. He didn’t get to go with the other warriors because of his wings; he probably didn’t get to do much but get left behind. “Okay, then,” she said, “but be careful.”