Blackbringer

“That blessing ceremony I told you about . . . ,” she said, and took a deep breath, blushing. “Talon, listen, this is all going to sound mad, but here it is.”

She told him everything in one swift rush. By the end of it he was just staring at her, and she said peevishly, “You wanted to know, now you know. Say something.”

“So it’s . . . the Tapestry? The . . . energy . . . that’s all around us? Like a river?”

Magpie cocked her head and looked at him keenly. “You feel it too?”

He nodded. “When I’m knitting, it’s like my mind falls into a river full of glyphs that just takes me. . . .”

Magpie was nodding too, and that wondering smile was playing at the corners of her lips. “Flummox me,” she said. “And Poppy felt it too. I guess I’m not alone like I always thought.”

“Do you think all faeries feel it?” Talon asked.

“I know they used to, before the Djinn forsook us.”

“Maybe when the Magruwen dreamed you, his dreams sort of spilled over and touched other sprouts who were being born too.”

“We are all the same age,” she mused. “And we were all born in Dreamdark. I wonder if it’s just us or if there are others too.”

“I wonder.”

“So you . . . believe me?” Magpie asked timidly.

He shrugged. “Sure I never knew anyone like you before,” he said easily. “But Magpie . . . if you were in the Gardens, did you happen to see . . . my folk?”

“Neh. The Blackbringer’s victims aren’t there.”

“What? Then where are they?”

“I don’t know,” she said in a bleak voice.

Batch rolled over then and farted in his sleep and Magpie and Talon both had to suppress snorts of laughter. “It’s good to know,” said Talon, “that nothing’s ever so serious that a squelch can’t make you laugh.”

“Words to live by,” Magpie agreed.

Calypso said in an exasperated voice, “Jacksmoke, faeries! Do I have to knock ye on the heads to make ye rest?”

They tried to stifle their laughter. As she rolled over onto her side, Magpie felt something dig into her hip, and she sat up suddenly. “Oh!”

“What is it?” Talon asked.

Magpie was holding a little metal flask that was hooked onto her belt. “I forgot about this,” she said sadly. “Poppy gave it to me the day she . . .” Her mind rejected the word died, and she just trailed off. “It’s a potion she made. It’s supposed to help you remember your dreams.” She unscrewed the little cap and took a deep breath before drinking a swig of it. “Hmm,” she said. “It tastes nice. Want some? Dreams, you know, Bellatrix said that dreams are everything.”

Talon shook his head and murmured, “Bellatrix” with wonder as he reached for the flask. He took a sip and handed it back.

They flopped down back to back and nestled snug in the deep silks. “Good night, Talon,” said Magpie.

“Good night, Magpie.”

They were fast asleep within a minute. On the edge of the trunk Calypso muttered, “About time!”

THIRTY-TWO

That night Talon dreamed of flying, as he did most nights. But when Calypso woke him a few hours later he was filled not with longing or disappointment as he often was on waking to his real wings, but with an idea. His eyes snapped open, and he stared unseeing at the dust drifting overhead as an image spun slowly in his mind. An image of all twelve glyphs for flight joined into one exquisite pattern, a pattern he was certain had never existed before in all of time. A new spell for flight, which he would use to knit his next skin.

Magpie dreamed she was pursued by darkness, and in the dream she stood and let it steal over her like a numbing tide. She tossed in her sleep, murmuring. All around her the emptiness spread like a devastated sky, its dead and dying stars all but extinguished. But then in her dream she held aloft a light, a pure and piercing light, and those sparks flared in answer, one by one, and began to shine. She turned in a circle and they were everywhere. She walked on with her light, and they began to fall into step behind her, and all night long in her sleep she walked through the darkness, until at last she found the edge of it and stepped back into the world. They filed out of the emptiness behind her, one by one, Poppy, Maniac, the tattooed warriors, even the fishermen, their turbans fallen sadly askew on their huge human heads as they came blinking back into the light.

She woke with a gasp and sat straight up, expecting to see them all around her, but she saw only Talon lying on his back, staring at the ceiling with a look of awe. He turned slowly to her, and when their eyes met, they were shining, bright with dreaming, filled with new magic, new ideas, and new hope.

“I think I know what happened to them,” Magpie said. “The Blackbringer’s victims, I think I know how to save ’em!”

THIRTY-THREE

The huge human cook awoke before dawn with her mouth watering from a dream of strawberries, but when she went yawning into the dooryard to gather some, she found the runners plucked clean of every last fruit. She didn’t know who to blame, the kitchen maids or the cat, so she woke them all by banging two pots together and set them to work early without any breakfast. Some hedge imps took advantage of the noise to knock over a jar of nutmeg and stuff their pockets full before vanishing in a blink.

Not far away, two faeries and a crow stood on the lip of the old well with their bellies uncomfortably full of berries. “You shouldn’t have eaten that last one,” Magpie whispered to Talon.

“Couldn’t leave one,” Talon replied with a groan. “Got to finish what you start.”

“I don’t know if my floating spell will hold you up now!”

Talon snorted, remembering the floating spell that had swept every soul in Rathersting Castle off their feet. “You’ll manage,” he whispered back.

“Ready, love?” asked Calypso. The other five crows had positioned themselves in the trees to keep watch from every direction.

“Aye. Here we go.” Magpie touched the spell to Talon’s shoulder and when he stepped into the darkness he drifted slowly downward. His moth wings fanned the air, guiding his drift, while Magpie hovered beside him and Calypso heaved overhead. They descended. A small ring of spelled light clung to them, but it made the darkness below all the blacker. The plumes of magic wafting up the well shaft were stronger than they had been the first time Magpie had come, and the air was hot and acrid as bad breath.