Blackbringer (9 page)

“Magpie?” inquired a soft voice.

Magpie looked up sharply. A red-haired faerie lass—a
beautiful
faerie lass—stood balanced on the tapered end of the branch, smiling tentatively. “Who wants to know?” Magpie asked.

“It’s me, Poppy,” said the other lass.

“Poppy?” Magpie repeated, staring.

She came closer, knelt at Magpie’s side, and tucked her huge wings behind her. “I looked for you in the play,” she said. “I thought if you were in it you’d turned into a crow, though now I see you’ve turned only halfway.” She nodded to Magpie’s skirt and smiled. “Fine feathers,” she said.

Magpie wondered whether she was being mocked. This faerie was certainly not the type to wear crow feathers! She was beautiful even beyond the usual measure of faerie beauty and as poised as a flower. She wore rose-colored silk and her hair was upswept in a spiral of braids, each one a different shining hue of copper, bronze, or crimson. Next to her Magpie felt like she was wearing a bird’s nest on her head.

“It reminds me of that time,” the beautiful lass said, “when you conjured yourself imp whiskers so you could look like Snoshti.”

Magpie looked closely at her brown eyes then. They were warm as a hug, and she knew that it was indeed Poppy and that there was no mockery in her. “Poppy!” she said, and threw her arms around her earliest friend.

“Blessings, old feather,” Snoshti said, coming up to Calypso behind the stage caravan where he awaited his next cue.

“Ah, madam, we meet again,” he said, sweeping off his crown and bowing low.

“So ye’ve kept her alive, and that’s something,” the little imp said grudgingly.

“Been the pleasure of my long life,” Calypso replied.

“Where is she?”

“Hiding.”

“Eh?”

“Stage fright,” he said with a shrug.

“We
are
talking of Magpie Windwitch?”

“Aye, but don’t fret, Good-imp. It’s pure the only thing that frights her.”

“So she’s coming on well?”

“Perfect, just perfect. Clever and kind and mysterious strong.”

Snoshti squinted at him.
“Gifted?”

“Aye, d’ye doubt it?”

“Does she know it?”

“I haven’t told her anything, if that’s what ye mean. But someone had better do, soon. She’ll start thinking she’s tetched.”

“Eh?”

“Not an hour ago she turned the queen’s hair to worms—”

Snoshti snorted. “Worms?”

“Aye, worms. Shivered herself some, I ken. The lass has got magic in her she don’t know what to do with.”

“Is that why ye’ve come now? It en’t time. She’s still a sprout.”

“Aye, that she is.” Calypso sighed. “Didn’t Algorab tell ye not to get in a fuss? ’Pie had her own reason to come. She means to find the Magruwen.”

Snoshti snorted again. “The Magruwen? She’s afraid of the stage but wants to find the Magruwen?”

“That’s my ’Pie. Ye wouldn’t know where we might find him, now?”

“Neh, bird! And ye know how we’ve searched!”

“Ach, well, I thought not. Now if ye’ll pardon me, madam, my cue. We’ll talk more later?” He hopped toward the stage entrance. “Over scones?” he called back to her.

Snoshti chuffed. Scones! Crow was begging for treats. Well, small price. Her lass was back. She reached out to catch a wandering beetle with her crook. “The Magruwen, eh, missy?” she murmured, pondering. She drove the beetles back into the forest to find a quiet place to disappear. There was something she’d need to fetch.

“Mad faeries, swooping mad shouty faeries . . . ,” Batch whimpered as he skittered along the forest floor as fast as his meaty haunches would carry him. He’d never have escaped if the faeries hadn’t swooped down like that, too near the crack where master lurked. They didn’t know. They only saw the vultures, sure.

They couldn’t know.

On wheezed Batch, grateful now he wasn’t slowed by his wheelbarrow. He didn’t even have the pomegranate to weigh him down anymore. Er, the turnip anyway.

Master wasn’t pleased about that.

“Munch turnip, devil!” Batch muttered. A pomegranate, a turnip. How was he to know the Magruwen had tricked him? It occurred to Batch now that master didn’t even eat fruits. He ate . . . Well, he didn’t eat fruits. What did he want a pomegranate for? It didn’t matter. Batch was out of it now.

“Scurry scurry, little furry, through the forest, what’s your hurry?” he sang low and wheezy, urging himself on.

There had been such a scuffle. The tattooed faeries, swooping in with that war cry. They’d crashed a vulture and Batch had cheered them on. But then out came that liver-colored tongue, long as a lash. It got the old faerie first and the younger ones went wild and threw their knives into the dark. Sure it went quick after that but Batch was already on his way. No need to stick around for a good look.

Poor faeries.

In the darkness of the catacombs master had been just a voice to him, a terrible voice. Batch hadn’t seen anything then and he’d scarcely gotten a better look since. Master was hard to look at. The eyes played tricks.

Batch scooted along, wheezing and thinking of the silver bat wings. It was a real puzzle—he needed wings to get his wings, to flap down that horrid well and grab them! He should have ripped the pair off that old faerie chief and used those to fly down the well. Sure the codger didn’t need them anymore where he was going, but Batch did. A nasty gleam lit his eyes. There were plenty more wings like those in Dreamdark, sure.

“Eenie meenie minie ming,” Batch sang. “Catch a faerie by the wing . . . If she hollers, let her sing, the lovely song of a faerie scream!”

“How did you know where to find me?” Magpie asked Poppy, looking around. The thick foliage of the linden enclosed her completely, like a little room.

“I heard from some ivy,” Poppy answered, “and from a beech sapling just yonder.”

Magpie cocked her head and studied her. “For true?” she asked. Poppy nodded. “You can speak with plants and things? That’s sharp! What do they sound like? What do they say?”

“Oh, they’ve all kinds of voices, and they say all kinds of things. Herbs sort of sing, and flowers gossip like biddies.”

“And trees?” Magpie asked, laying her hand on the bark of the old linden.

“Ah, trees, well, you know trees are earth elementals,” she said. “Some tell tales, but they tell far less than they know.”

“Sure they know a lot.”

“Aye. The ancient ones like old Father Linden here have drunk the dew of the Dawn Days. Think of it, they’ve been alive in the world for all the lifetimes of faeries stretched end to end, all the way to the beginning! But they keep their secrets close. I rarely hear them speak at all.”

“Oh, aye? Pity. I wonder if he remembers me,” she mused, glancing at the place where the red door had been swallowed by a skin of bark.

“I’m sure he does! Others do. They told me you’d returned.” Poppy paused and grew serious. “I missed you so when you left. Why did you? Why did you go?”

Magpie frowned. “My mother . . . It’s the wind blood, I ken. She’s never gotten used to being in one spot. They only stayed till I was big enough to travel, and we never stayed anyplace half so long again.”

“But what is it you do
. . . beyond
?” Poppy asked. To the faeries of Dreamdark, leaving the forest was like leaping off the edge of the world.

“Well . . . ,” Magpie mused, wondering where to start. Not with devils, sure, or chasing witches, or hanging upside down in a monkey king’s dungeon. “We go find faerie clans and we try to learn their magic. Papa writes it down in books so it won’t die out with the old folks. Right now they’re with a clan on Anang Paranga that still practices shape-shifting.”

“Shape-shifting?” Poppy marveled. “And your parents will learn how to do it?”

“Aye. We also search for clues of what happened to the Djinn and try to keep magic relics out of the hands of monkeys and mannies, who’re always messing about where they oughtn’t.”

“You’ve seen humans?”

“Piff. Thousands. Mannies are nothing special.”

“But aren’t they giant-big?”

Magpie shrugged. “Not so big. About like a stack of raccoons. There’s plenty of bigger things. You should see elephants. Whales!”

“And dragons?” asked Poppy.

“Dragons?” Magpie frowned at her. “There aren’t any dragons left.”

“What?”

“Neh. Humans killed ’em out ages ago! Firedrakes too.”

“All of them?” Poppy asked, aghast.

Magpie knew that faeries lived in isolation, ignorant of the world, but she was still shocked. How could it not be known in Dreamdark that the dragons were extinct? Seeing Poppy’s horrified expression, Magpie felt the tragedy anew. She herself had first heard the chronicle of the dragon-slaying many years ago, but it still clenched her insides to think of it. Such a frenzy of butchery it had been that even thousands of years could not cleanse humanity of its stain. Magpie chewed her lip. There was no need to school Poppy in the ugliness of the world, was there? She said casually, “Ach, who knows? There’s whole volcanoes a dragon could slip down into like a bubble bath. Sure they’re hiding. . . . But tell me, what about you?”

Poppy said, “Nothing to do with mannies and monkeys! Just growing things. Dreaming new flowers. Making potions.”

“Potions?”

“Aye. I’ve never been great with glyphs,” she admitted with a pretty blush. “But potions I can see and stir. They make sense to me.”

Potions were a very different art from glyphs, an earthy magic Magpie associated with hearth witches and healers. “What sort of potions?” she asked.

“Oh, say, for better night vision or a singing voice, or seeing lies or remembering your dreams. And for things like wrinkles and warts—”

“Causing them or curing them?”

Poppy laughed. “Both! And there are potions for telling if a babe is a lad or lass before it’s born. And love magic—”

Magpie snorted. “Love magic! I don’t think you’ll be needing any potions to make lads fall in love with
you.”

“Me?” Poppy grimaced. “Lads? Echh. Nay, please! But oh, my cousin Kex has been hounding me fierce for a potion to woo the queen.”

Magpie froze and narrowed her eyes.
“Queen?”
she asked.

“Aye! Haven’t you heard yet?” Poppy laughed a hard laugh. “The heir of Bellatrix has been found, blessings be!”

“That fake’s nothing to do with Bellatrix!” Magpie snapped.

Poppy looked at her, surprised. “Oh,
I
know that!”

“You do?”

“Aye. Well . . . I don’t
know
it, quite. But I don’t
believe
it. It all happened too fast, her showing up here and getting crowned queen.”

“But . . . how
did
it happen?”

Poppy shrugged. “She had Bellatrix’s crown and tunic. She had some scroll proving who she was. And she had . . . well, she had a city full of folk whose legends were worn out. They just wanted to believe her
that
bad. To have a new legend, you ken?”

Magpie remembered how, for a moment, she too had wanted to believe in Vesper. Ashamed, she grimaced and asked, “Are faeries so bored they got to
invent
legends?”

“Bored, aye, and afraid. I know
I
am. Afraid nothing exciting’s ever going to happen again!”

“Not all excitement’s good,” Magpie warned. “Most isn’t.”

“Well, boredom’s none so fine either. There’s only so much dancing a faerie can do. And it’s not just faeries,” Poppy said. “The imps and creatures have a story of their own. They’ve been waiting for years—so I hear—for the faerie they believe will bring back the Dawn Days.”

“Bring back the Dawn Days?”

“Aye.”

“The creatures got a story about a faerie?”

“A
secret
story.”

Magpie was flummoxed that she’d never heard it herself. The crows couldn’t keep secrets to save their beaks. “But . . . you don’t think they mean Vesper, do you?”