“All right, come on,” Talon said, leading the way down a flight of stone steps. He glanced back at Nettle and said sternly, “Eat that!”
Nettle watched the whole procession go by—faeries, crows, and one cursing imp—as her eyes narrow with suspicion. But when they were gone, she unwrapped the little paper and hesitantly put the sweet in her mouth, and she felt considerably more forgiving after that.
After a quick encounter with some hot water and soap and a misguided attempt to drag a comb through her hair, Magpie straightened her tunic and headed down the labyrinthine corridors and stairs toward the great hall. There she found Talon in front of the massive fireplace with Orchidspike,Nettle, and two older faeries whom he introduced as his mother, Lady Bright, and his uncle Orion, the chief’s brother. Like most of the ladies Magpie had seen about the castle, Talon’s mother—Rathersting by marriage, not birth—had no tattoos. Orion was gruff and grizzled, with a broad scar marring half the black designs on his face.
Magpie curtsied to the lady, and Orion nodded to her and she nodded back, but her attention was claimed by the food on the long tables, platters and platters of food. As she greeted the others, her eyes kept returning to it. Chestnut pudding, corn bread, ripe red tomatoes, custard in fig syrup, soft blue beetlemilk cheeses wrapped in leaves, steaming stew, crispy fried squash blossoms...Her stomach rumbled loudly, and a mere instant later Talon’s stomach cut in even louder.
“Eat, then,” said Lady Bright, laughing, as a biddy set down an enormous tray of hot loaves.
They grabbed plates and heaped them high, then hauled them to a table where they began to eat as if it were a competition. If itwasa competition, Magpie lost, for she slumped back in her chair and groaned while there was yet food on her plate. She said, “If I had food like that waiting for me at the end of each day, I’d be fat as a tick on a manny’s fanny!”
Talon laughed into his second custard, and the faeries sipped cider until Orion called the council to begin.
Brandy was served and pipes were lit. Everyone but the warriors left the Hall, though Orchidspike and Magpie stayed in their places and the crows hunched in a cluster smoking thechief’s tobacco. Chairs were scraped nearer the fire and elbows slung across knees as the warriors leaned forward to listen.
Orion stood. “Gents,” he declaimed, then gave a nod to Orchidspike, Magpie, and Nettle. “Lady and lasses. ’Tis a terrible time! Never in memory have the Rathersting failed in our duty to protect Dreamdark, but now we fail every night. Since the battle at Issrin Ev, we been chasing shadows whilst the fiend hunts free! Word’s come that last eve, the whole Followtide clan down river way was took and only Codger Spindrift left behind, who’d fallen asleep in his canoe.”
A murmur went round.
“And that’s not all. This very morning, as well you know, our raiding party came back smaller than it left. We lost Spiro and Bruxis in the Spiderdowns, but not to spiders, nay, and so we know now where the devil lurks. He’s there in the worst of all places, and the spiders do his bidding like those vultures did, so it seems.”
Magpie and Talon stared at each other, alarmed.
“Dark’s falling fast,” said a bearded older warrior, rising to his feet. “And more will vanish tonight, nay? It’s intolerable. We must end this devil now!”
“But you haven’t seen it, Hornet,” said Orion. “How do you stab a shadow? How can you kill a cloud?”
“You can’t,” said Magpie. All eyes turned to her when she spoke, three dozen fierce pairs of eyes, framed in tattoos and mirroring the firelight back at her in their stares. She continued, “You can only hope to capture it, and I’ve got its bottle.”
“And who areyou?” asked a younger warrior, his voice hostile.
Talon’s chair scraped back suddenly as he stood. “Hiss, well you know the name of our guest, so mind your manners. She’s Magpie Windwitch. She knows more about devils than any of us, and she’s our best hope for catching this foe.”
There was a stir among the gents, of surprise and, Magpie thought, derision.
Talon went on. “These two days’ past, we’ve been beyond.” The murmuring grew louder. “And we’ve had council with the Magruwen.” Gasps burst out. “And we’ll tell you what we’ve learned and what must be done.”
Talon and Magpie related all they knew of the Blackbringer, and a dark silence settled over the Rathersting with the revelation that there was an eighth ancient stalking their wood on a rampage of vengeance.
“But can he be captured?” someone asked.
“The Djinns’ champions did it once,” said Magpie, “and we’ll do it again.”
“Then we should do it tonight!” someone yelled, and a roar went round, and the stamping of feet. “To war!” they bellowed, and some rose up on their wings.
“Neh—” said Magpie, but her voice was overpowered by the roaring, so she called out in her loudest crow squawk, “Wait!”
They all swung to look at her. “Wait,” she said again. “The Magruwen’s making a new seal, and we’ll need that first. And there’s something else. The chief and all the others? Once the devil’s been caught there’ll be no hope for ’em. If we’re to bring ’em back, we got to do it first.”
They stared at her. “Bring ’em back?” said Orion. “Lass, what are you on about? Much may we mourn our fallen, but there’s no coming back from the Moonlit Gardens!”
“They’re not in the Moonlit Gardens,” she said.
“Now how could you know that?” demanded the one called Hiss with scorn thick in his voice.
“Indeed,” said Orchidspike, speaking for the first time. “Magpie, what is it that you know?” she asked.
Magpie glanced around at the ferocious faces and wondered how to answer. Sure they wouldn’t believe what she had to say. “They’re just not there,” she told them. “I saw my friend Poppy turn into a shadow even as I held her. I was inside the Blackbringer for an instant myself, and I felt my skin begin to melt away. I reckon I’d’ve become a shadow, too. So I think that’s where they are.” She paused. “Inhim.”
