Blackbringer

“All right in there, ’Pie?” Calypso called from outside, and both faeries started and looked to the door.

“Pie?” Talon repeated.

“Never you mind!” she said to him, then called out to the birds, “In here, I found someone!”

Calypso and Algorab appeared like shadows in the doorway, and seeing them, Talon gave the lass another hard look. He’d seen crows arrive yestermorn, shortly before the vultures.

“You from this place?” Magpie asked the lad, seeing feed sacks leaning against the pen near him, as if he’d been feeding the pigeons.

“Well, I know you’re not, if you have to ask about me,” he said. One thing about being Rathersting—folk tended to know you on sight.

“That’s a Rathersting, lass,” said the raven.

Magpie looked steadily at the lad. “I know the name,” she said. “The guardians. Fine, ancient clan. So what are you doing flying around in a stolen skin?”

“I didn’t steal it,” he said fiercely. “I made it!”

“Aye, sure.”

Talon gritted his teeth. Reminding himself he was a prince of the realm and not one to be held hostage by a strange lass, he rose to his feet and held himself tall, a full head taller than her. They faced each another, tense. “Never mind the skin,” he said. “I want to know what you’re doing in West Mirth. You’re a stranger here; don’t try to deny it. So what’s a strange lass doing waving a djinncraft blade round an abandoned hamlet?”

“It wasn’t abandoned.”

“What?”

“Didn’t you see the beds? They never got out of their beds.”

Talon felt sick. He’d known something wasn’t right in the cottages, but he hadn’t been able to put his finger on just what. The lass was right. The blankets hadn’t been thrown back. There’d been no struggle and no sign they’d risen from their beds. It was as if they’d vanished in them. “What do you know?” he demanded.

“Nothing,” she cried, frustrated. “Still nothing! Except he’s come here to Dreamdark, of all places! What mad devil would come to Dreamdark?”

“Devil?” Talon repeated, incredulous.

Magpie saw the disbelief in his eyes. “Aye, devil,” she said. “But tell me, lad, what do you know?”

They faced off like a couple of cats that might start hissing and spitting at any moment. “Lad, lass,” Calypso said soothingly, coming forward. “It’s plain ye’ve two hard skulls between ye, but there’s no need for this. Sure we’re together against it, neh?”

“Against what, exactly?” Talon asked. “And don’t say devil. Every eejit knows they’re long dead and gone from this world!”

“Long gone? Aye. Long dead? Neh. They were never killed. They couldn’t be,” Magpie told him.

“Why? Sure Bellatrix could—”

“Ach, sure she could. That’s not the thing. The thing is, the blighters got sparks, same as faeries. They die, they pass to the Moonlit Gardens, just like us.”

Talon looked at her, and some of the anger went out of his face, to be replaced with a dawning understanding. “Oh,” he said softly. “Couldn’t have the Gardens swarming with devils. So then . . . what became of ’em?”

“The champions caught ’em in bottles and threw ’em in the sea, sealed with magic nothing was ever supposed to undo. Everything was fine for thousands of years, while faeries made an art of forgetting.”

“And now one’s got out?”

Magpie grimaced. “One or two.”

“And it’s come here?” Talon asked. “That’s what it is? What’s it done to . . . ?” His voice trailed off and he and Magpie listened to the silence of West Mirth. “What’s it done to them?” he almost whispered.

“I don’t know,” she said, softening, and finally sheathing her knife. “I’ve never seen a devil like this.”

“And how many have you seen?”

“A fair few,” she answered gruffly, turning and walking out between Calypso and Algorab.

Talon followed. “Who are you? You’ve got to tell me what you know. It’s taken my kinsmen—”

Magpie turned to him. “What? When?”

“Late yestermorn. At Issrin Ev. They tracked some great vultures there, and only their knives were left to find. You don’t think they’re . . .”

“I don’t know. If it’s any comfort, I’ve never seen a devil eat but that it left a dread mess behind. Blood everywhere, and sometimes they spit out the skeletons like owl pellets.”

“That’s a great comfort, lass, sure,” he said with sarcasm. “Thanks for your heartfelt words.”

“Ach,” Magpie muttered, realizing how crude she must sound. Her cheeks colored a little. It was long since she’d been much in the company of faeries. Snoshti was right—she was a barbarian. “Come on, birds, we got to go.”

“Lass, wait!” Talon said sharply.

She turned to him, her face guarded, but when her blue eyes locked on his, she saw only anxiety and fatigue. He held his hands out to her in the manner of greeting, and after a brief hesitation she reached out and pressed her palms against his. Both faeries’ eyes widened in surprise as they felt a sudden surge in the pulse of invisible force around them at the very moment of their touch. It tingled in their fingertips so that after they pulled their hands apart both clutched their fingers surreptitiously into fists. Neither had any reason to think the other felt it, and they drew warily apart.

“You’ll warn the folks hereabouts?” Magpie asked Talon.

“Aye. I’ll bring them to the castle.”

“Good. That’s good. And . . . be careful, neh?” She rose to her wings but hesitated a moment in the air with a thought on the tip of her mind. She said, “Lad, that skin . . .” She gestured to the gossamer fabric that still clothed him from neck to toes. “You really made it, neh?”

“I finished it this dawn.”

“Well, it’s . . .” She groped for a word and settled on “Uncommon,” then turned and flickered away into the sky, flanked by birds and wickedly quick.

Uncommon. It wasn’t much of a compliment, not by itself. It was the way her mouth curled up at its corners into a kind of marveling smile when she said it that made it one. Talon found he was blushing. She was gone by the time he realized he still had no idea who she was. “Pie?” he murmured. “What kind of a name is that?”