Blackbringer

“Aye.” Poppy nodded. “That spell’s pulled tight. I’ve done all I know how. Kex, it’s beyond me! Call for Orchidspike!”

Kex stiffened. “You well know Orchidspike refuses to attend my lady.”

“Aye, I know. And now, so do I.”

Kex reddened. “Think hard on your choice of friends, Poppy. After all, these . . . actors . . . are surely soon to grace Dreamdark with the priceless gift of their departure, and then you may find yourself quite . . . unwelcome . . . in polite society.”

Poppy looked him boldly in the eyes and said, “I want nothing to do with Queen Vesper’s society! I never did!”

Before Kex could reply, they were all distracted by a chortle that burst from Batch. “Queen Vesper, did I hear you say?” he asked. “Queen Vesper?”

“Don’t touch her name with your foul tongue, irkmeat!” cried the gent.

Batch laughed and a vicious smile transformed his face. All traces of the woebegone sniveler were gone in an instant and he became, again, the predator that would have torn Poppy’s wings from her back without a thought. “Tell Queen Vesper that Batch Hangnail sends his regards.”

EIGHTEEN

Behind a painted screen, Lady Vesper heard the name “Batch Hangnail” and her lips and knuckles went white.

“Lady?” ventured Kex when she didn’t respond.

“Aye, Lord Winterkill,” she said, an unaccustomed catch in her musical voice. “An imp . . . is it?”

“Aye. There’s no question, that lass is in league with him. What company she keeps! Imps and crows! It’s shocking my cousin is consorting with—”

“Sir,” she cut in impatiently. “What manner of imp is he?”

“Foulest I’ve ever beheld, Lady. Encrusted with filth! But strange—his whole tail was covered in the finest diamond rings!”

Kex couldn’t see his lady. Indeed, he hadn’t laid eyes on her since before the play, when she had retired to her chamber and refused to come out. If he could have seen her, he might scarcely have recognized her. The hair was the least of it—it was tight-tied in three layers of silk kerchiefs and further bound in pearl strands, with Bellatrix’s circlet at its crown. She might have gone out in such a headdress and inspired a new fashion, but for the fact that it . . . wriggled. No, it was her face that would have shocked him.

She had drained of all color. Her lips were smashed together and her eyes wild, and all her beauty was quite lost amid the fury, disbelief, outrage, and fear that moved over it fast as storm winds.

“Do you know where they have gone?” came her voice from behind the screen, each syllable sharp as a knife.

“The lass mentioned Issrin Ev, my blossom.”

“Lord Winterkill, I thank you for this news. Kindly leave me now.” Vesper held one hand out to him from behind the screen and he kissed it hungrily.

After he left she drew back her hand and wiped the drool from it, her lip curled in disgust, the rest of her face contorted with rage. “The imp is alive?” she seethed, grabbing a gilt hand mirror off her vanity table. “Yet alive?” she demanded, peering into it. Her own face was all that looked out, but she seemed to squint beyond her reflection, searching for something deeper.

She swept the tabletop with a furious glance and, not finding a sharp instrument, took the soft pad of her fingertip between her teeth and ripped it open. She didn’t even flinch from the pain but only jabbed her finger at the mirror and flung her blood onto it. As soon as it hit the surface her reflection melted away and she saw through the glass to the hideous thing trapped inside it.

Its mottled brown skin had the texture of dried gut stretched over a skull, and so crude were its features it seemed to have been sculpted in the dark, and with one obvious omission: it had no mouth. Or rather, its mouth was a mass of scar tissue with no opening. It was pulled so tight it was clear there were teeth beneath, many teeth, and that they were well sharp enough to eat through its own puckered flesh and make an opening there, as it had clearly done many times in the past. Abominably, the creature’s mouth was a wound that healed shut when it went too long between feedings.

“Gutsuck,” Vesper said with icy control, “I have just had an interesting piece of news. Batch Hangnail lives.” She paused. “Is not that odd? I find it so, since you swore to me you had finished him!”

Its eyes were deep black slits, leering back at her.

“But that’s not all,” she went on. “He’s here, in Dream-dark!” A trill of laughter came from her lips, high and wild. “So I summon you forth to do what you swore you had already done. Kill the imp!”

The surface of the mirror distorted as the thing began to push out into the world, but there was a sound like a fizz as its face emerged, and it drew back sharply, welts rising on its skin. Its slit eyes narrowed further as it glared at its mistress.

“Oh! Irksome protection spells!” cried Vesper, just now remembering them. “Of course you can’t come forth in Never Nigh!” With a groan of exasperation she stood, slid the mirror into a deep pocket of her gown, and fluttered to the window. She looked carefully around, then slid out between the curtains to be lost among the trees.

Poppy Manygreen had planted many, many things in her hundred years and she never tired of the miracle. Each time a seed or nut or bulb awakened to its own unique life, the awe awakened in her anew. Cradling the scorched acorn in her arms now, she marveled that the dreamer king himself had touched it. It seemed to thrum with mystery, and she felt sure the pulse—as Magpie had called it—quickened around it.

By holding out a hand over the soil, a Manygreen could probe for a “sweet spot,” a nurturing nook of rich earth among the roots and rocks of the ancient forest where a new life could take hold. She found such a spot on a little ridge overlooking Misky Creek, and she was just tucking the nut into its bed when she felt a murmur on the move. A whisper of news flitted from fern to ivy to ash and when she heard what it was she sank quietly out of sight among the leaves.

Only a moment later Lady Vesper landed downcreek. She drew something out of her pocket and spoke and Poppy could just barely hear her words over the sluice of the creek. “To Issrin Ev,” Vesper said. “Kill Batch Hangnail!” Poppy’s eyes widened. What business, she wondered, had the queen with that scavenger? Then her eyes widened further as a misshapen creature squirmed out of the mirror and unpeeled great membranous bat wings that were wrapped tightly round its body.