“But Lady, to balance lives on a sprout’s dream . . .”
“You’ll decide what you must, Orion, but I’ve felt a tide of mystery wash over us such as I’ve never felt in all my life, and it’s my belief these are no ordinary dreams and this is no ordinary sprout.”
Orion frowned and looked at Magpie, small and ornery, and at his nephew by her side. He sighed, then told his men, “No hunting tonight, then. I don’t know about dreams and that, but Talon’s right. We’re just not ready for this foe. There’s naught I know to do against him.”
Not all the warriors were happy about this. Grumbles of “another night” and “strange lass” and “Prince Scuttle” could be heard in deep muttering voices.
“We’ve warned all the hamlets and clans. We’ve done what we can. Tomorrow we’ll hunt the Blackbringer in the Spiderdowns and be ready when he comes out again. But he’ll hunt tonight, of that we can be sure, and I want to double the watch,” Orion continued. “Hiss, Viper, Howl, Lash, Prowl, Thorn, Hornet, and Mars, with me. The rest of you, sleep.”
And so ended the counsel. Magpie felt some tension go out of her as the fierce tattooed faces found other things to scowl at besides herself. She left the hall with Talon and the crows. “Tough crowd,” she told Talon with a shiver.
“They’re feeling feeble and not much liking it.”
“Aye, bless their scowls. Sure I never met a warrior yet who didn’t sneer at me as a wee useless lass . . . except you, anyway.”
“Well, I’m no warrior.”
“What? Course you are! Prince of ’em!”
“Neh,” he told her, flushing. “I’ve never even been on a raid, because of . . .” He fluttered his wings.
“Well, maybe you haven’t. But do you think you’d have ever made a skin if you could fly?”
He shrugged.
“I bet not,” she went on. “You’d be just one of them in there, saying ‘neh’ and never dreaming up a single new thing.”
They had come to a fork in the corridor where Talon would turn toward the chief’s tower and Magpie and the crows to the castle’s guest cells. He asked her, “Lass, do you really mean to go inside the Blackbringer again?”
“Aye.”
From behind them, Bertram cut in. “I don’t like it, Mags. Sure I want Maniac back, but not if ye got to risk yerself.”
“He’s right, ‘Pie,” said Calypso. “I en’t spent this life raising ye up ever so careful, and Lady Bellatrix didn’t talk Fade’s ear off all them years just so ye can go like that.”
“And if he gets ye,” added Pigeon, “who’ll get him? Sure nobody could, and that would mean the end of everything, forever!”
“And wouldn’t yer mum skin us then!” squawked Pup. “And Good-imp Snoshti! She shivers me fierce!”
“Ach, birds! You’re supposed to be on my side!”
“We are,” answered Bertram. “On the side of yer skin, love. How can ye keep from turning shadow like the others?”
“There’s got to be a way.”
“Maybe you’ll dream it tonight,” Talon suggested.
“I hope,” she said. She hugged all the crows good night and went her way, calling back, “Good night, Talon.”
“Good night, Magpie. Dream of magic,” he called back.
“You too.”
But the kind of dreams they meant, the ones that come tumbling like springs from unmapped deeps, full of hints and secrets, wouldn’t visit them this night, because both faeries were too anxious to sleep.
THIRTY-SIX
Magpie closed herself into her windowless chamber deep within the castle and slouched on the edge of the cot, chewing her lip. Magic didn’t come to you only in your sleep, sure. The Djinns’ dreams—the luminous threads—those were open-eyed dreams, things of intention and will. But they were art, and hadn’t the Djinn shown her just how artless she was? The magic she’d made—turning Vesper’s hair to worms, sparking the Magruwen awake—had she ever done a bit of it on purpose? It just blurted from her like curse words when she was in temper and made chaos in the Tapestry. That was no way to take on the greatest foe her folk had ever known!
She opened her book and leafed through it. So the Magruwen would give her a star to light her way. That was something. But did she know any protection spells strong enough to withstand that sucking dark? Unlikely. Nothing in these pages would help her. She slammed the book closed. Things were different now. Bigger. And the same went with capturing him when that time came. Her usual tricks would be useless.
She stared at her hands, remembering the tingling that had come into them when the warriors in the hall had laughed at her. She’d had to bite her lip to quell the magic she’d felt surging up in her. How could she summon it when she needed it? How could she bend it to her will? The Magruwen had said the Tapestry would be no use to her unless she understood it. Well, she didn’t, but there sure wasn’t time just now to learn!
She sighed, wondering how the champions had captured the Blackbringer before. Suddenly she sat up straight with a grin. Why not ask? she thought. She closed her eyes and did as Snoshti had taught her, imagining herself fading while she visioned three glyphs in her mind, for threshold, for moonlight, and for garden, linked in just the right way. She held her breath, waiting to feel the winged touch, and when she did she sighed with relief, opening her eyes to the moon-washed riverscape.
Crossing the bridge to the Moonlit Gardens, Magpie caught the startled looks of faeries who’d witnessed her first crossing and who were stunned to see her come again. They whispered among each other and pointed, and she gave them a shy wave before taking to her wings and setting off toward the cottage carved into the cliff. Flying beside the whispering river, she felt a pang of loneliness. To be here, the only living soul in this quiet land, it made her wish for the stuffiness and dust of that trunk in the mannies’ attic, for the crows gathered round on all sides, the stolen picnic, the farting imp, and Talon.
Talon. She realized she’d memorized his tattoos as if they were a glyph and wondered what would happen if she visioned them like one. Would it summon him? She smiled at the thought. That would be sharp. He wasn’t so bad to have around.
She reached the cliff’s edge and descended on her wings down the rock-cut stairs, but as they curved and Bellatrix’s garden came into view, she slowed and stopped. The lady was sitting there on the same stone bench where she’d braided Magpie’s hair. She seemed to be looking out into the canyon, but one glance at her face made it clear that whatever she was seeing, it wasn’t the familiar landscape.