The Magruwen closed his eyes and Talon held very still, hoping the Djinn wouldn’t have to touch his forehead as Magpie had, but he felt only a slight prickle on the back of his neck, and then the Djinn blinked his eyes open again. “Lad,” he said, “have you tried this yet?”
“Neh, I only dreamt it last night.”
“It is a very complex spell.”
Magpie cut in, “I never even heard of a spell that fuses twelve glyphs! The most I ever saw was seven, and even that was only the one time.”
“Truly?” asked Talon, shamefaced. “I didn’t know. . . . I reckon it won’t work.”
“It will work,” said the Magruwen. “It is extraordinary. You dreamt it, did you?”
“Aye, after I tasted that cordial.”
“Indeed.”
“The cordial was made by a faerie too, Lord Magruwen,” said Magpie. “You see, we are more than butterflies.”
“I begin to see.”
“And the faerie who made it fell to the Blackbringer just days ago, as did Talon’s father, who’s the chief of the Rathersting, and his cousins, and many other faeries and creatures too.”
“I warned you about this foe.”
“What good is a warning? I want help catching him! Can’t you see now that there might be something in the world worth saving? Even Fade thinks so, even after what happened to him!”
The Magruwen sighed heavily, and long plumes of black smoke curled from his fiery horns. “Perhaps,” he admitted at last. “But it may be too late.”
“It can’t be, Lord, it just can’t be!” Magpie cried. “Isn’t there some way to make peace with him?”
“Peace? Nay, he is a force of hate. Even at his best he was fickle and tempestuous. Now? He is wrath. He is fury.”
“What did you do to him?”
“We were divided. Three of the Djinn were for ending him. The other three wanted mercy, something that could be undone one day if ever . . . if ever this world failed. The Vritra was for mercy, and it has been his own undoing. Mine was the deciding vote. I chose . . . mercy. Though now it’s clear death would have been more merciful by far, to him and to the world.
“We met in secret. I reached up into the sky and cut down a swath of night and we plucked out all the stars one by one until absolute blackness was all that remained.”
“The heavens with the stars ripped out!” said Magpie. “That was what he called himself!”
The Magruwen nodded. “Out of the fabric of night we fashioned a skin. We let him discover where we were hiding and we lay in wait for him, and when he came sweeping down to earth we closed it around him and sealed it shut and there he was trapped, within a skin of darkness, his terrible power contained.”
“But—” began Magpie. “He has other powers now. And that tongue—”
“Aye. He wasn’t always so. He was only a shadow without voice or strength. But rage is a colossal force, and what the Astaroth lacked in dreams he made up in sheer, wicked will. He disappeared for centuries and then, when the whole world was the battlefield of the devil wars and the race of faeries was young and strong and the tide of the war seemed to have turned at last, he returned. He hunted the battlefields, devouring the wounded, faerie and devil both, and he grew stronger. That hideous tongue he cleaved from a dying devil and kept for himself. He gave himself a new name. He was the Blackbringer, and every living thing he touched turned to shadow.”
“Until the champions caught him and you sealed him in his bottle.”
“Aye. And now, again, he is returned.”
“What does he want?”
“To free himself and destroy the Tapestry.”
“Could he?”
“The Astaroth is the greatest force that ever was. The Tapestry is weak now. Even without him it has nearly fallen apart, and without you, little bird, it would have.”
Talon’s head turned sharply in Magpie’s direction, his eyebrows arching high in surprise.
Magpie asked, “But what about the skin? Could he get out of it?”
“He will never get out of it.”
“Neh? How can you be certain?”
“Of this I can be certain. Only I can release him. And I never will.”
“Oh . . . So that’s why he’s come here, then. Not to kill you, at least not until he gets you to release him.” She paused, thinking. “And the pomegranate, neh? That must have something to do with it.”
The Magruwen flared for a wild instant, then caught himself and sank back into a low burn. “Pomegranate?” he repeated.
Magpie squinted at him. “Aye, the one he sent the imp to you for. I can’t figure what he’d want with a pomegranate.”
“Nor I,” said the Djinn.
Again Magpie squinted at him. It was clear from the way he had flared up that she had caught him off guard. Well, now he wanted to lie to her. What could she do about that? Chewing her lip, she said carefully, “That’s mad strange, neh? He came all this way for it. And you know nothing of it?”
The Magruwen was silent.
Magpie crossed her arms and frowned. “Okay, then. But supposing we can put the Blackbringer back into his bottle, will you make a new seal for it?”
“If you capture him, little bird, I will seal the vessel.”
“Good. Thank you. This seal, though, it will have to hold out humans too.”
“I’ll need something from them to work that magic.”
“Will hair do?”
“Aye.”
Magpie turned to Calypso. “Would you mind, my feather, fetching us back a pigtail or two from above?”
He fluffed up his feathers, looking more ragged than ever after his brushes with the Djinn, and grumbled, “I don’t like leavin’ ye, ‘Pie.” He gave the Djinn King a hard look and asked Magpie, “Ye’ll be careful, neh?”
She hugged him around his neck and whispered, “Aye, feather,” and he flew off. She turned back to the Magruwen. “Will it take you long to make it?”
“Will it take you long to catch him?”
Magpie scowled. “Go quicker if you’d help. But there’s something else first, anywhich.”
“Oh, aye?”
“Aye . . .” She took a deep breath and blurted, “I’m going to get them back! His victims.”
“Get them back? From where?”
“Well, I don’t know! They never turned up in the Moonlit Gardens, Lord, and . . . I had this dream last night—”