She didn't see him climb the apple tree, so she was as surprised as the cat when hea"or rather, his phantasma"suddenly dropped from its branches to land right before the cat's nose. It was very lifelike for an illusion, Magpie thought, seeing no hint of the telltale traceries she'd detected around his falcon skin. She wouldn't have been able to tell the phantasm from the real lad. The cat's green eyes snapped open, but before it could move, the phantasm had flipped over its head and sprinted the length of its back, diving off its tail to land rolling and spring through the fence. With a yowl the cat gave chase. Magpie wanted to watch but she had her own part to play. She turned back to the shindy and lobbed a small strawberry at it, hitting its bare rump.

It turned and she waved and, after pausing to peck at the strawberry, it shuffled toward her. "Bless me," it said. "A faerie? Never seen one of ye lot here."

"Blessings, master shindy," Magpie started to say.

"Strag," he cut in. "No masters among the clucks and mannies! Just Strag."

"Strag, then. And I'm Magpie Windwitcha""

He cut in again with a low whistle. "Well, feather my britches," he said. "If it en't little foxlick, come back home!"

"Foxlick?" Magpie's hand flew to her hair. "How do youa"?"

"Oh, I know ye, I do indeed! How's the blessing coming on?"

"Eh?" puzzled Magpie. Just then Talon came up behind her, and Strag jumped at the sight of him. "Skaw!" he exclaimed. "Who scribbled on ye, faerie?"

"My great-uncle," replied Talon, nonplussed. "Who plucked you, chicken?"

Magpie nudged him with her elbow and made introductions. "Strag, we're looking for someone."

"Not so hasty, little missy. After all these years? Here I didn't think to see ye till ye were grown, but there ye are, in my own little yard! Let's see the blessing, eh? Please?"

Magpie glanced at Talon, who looked bewildered, and she said hesitantly, "Er, the blessing? See, Strag, I didn't know about all that till yesterday."

"Ach, imps and their secrets! Me, I'd've spilled the beans years ago. It was my finest bit of sparkle. I learnt it off my wizard. I gave ye a glamour, missy, a disguise for slipping amongst the mannies. Know what it is? Know what they never look twice at? A little brown bird! If it en't got color to catch their eye, it's nigh invisible to 'em. Ye'll see."

"You mean . . . I can turn into a little brown bird?" Magpie asked.

"Aye, nothing simpler! Just picture it, like it's standing there in front of ye, ye ken, a wren or a nuthatch or what, then sort of step into it like boots."

Magpie glanced at Talon again. He had his suspicious look back and he arched his eyebrow at her like a question. She chewed her lip and turned back to Strag and did as he described. She knew from Talon's gasp that it had worked. She fluttered her wings and caught sight of dull feathers out of the corner of her eye. Strag crowed with delight. "Perfect! If a manny even noticed ye he'd just shoo ye out the window and forget all about ye!"

She stepped backward out of it and returned to normal. "Sharp!" she said. She could feel Talon giving her a hard look but she ignored it and hugged Strag. "That'll be mad handy for spying. Thank you!"

His puckered chicken skin blushed all over. "My pleasure. Now, what ye doing lurking in a hen yard if ye didn't come special to see me?"

"We're looking for someone," Magpie replied. "Big haunchy imp been sizzled bald. You seen him?"

"Hoy, aye, I saw the scoundrel! Never thought he'd haul his rump up the drainpipe but he did, and quick. Sure it helped, the cat being on his heels! Slink nearly made a meal of him!"

"Where did he go?"

"Right in that window."

Magpie looked where he pointed, a drainpipe up to an open second-story window. "Talon, you up for a shimmy?" she asked him.

He just gave her an icy look and nodded sharply, and Magpie frowned uncomfortably.

"Ye'll come back and see me, missy?" asked Strag.

"Aye, we'll be back, and soon. We got to go and see the Magruwen."

"Skaw!" cried Strag. "The Magruwen?"

"Aye, he's down the well there. Didn't you ever know?"

"The well?" The shindy looked stupefied. "Neh! Sure but the mannies think it's cursed and won't go near it cause of the smoke and the smell of sulfur! Ye're saying it's the Djinn King . . . ?"

"Aye, and he's woken up from his long sleep."

"The old scorch himself! Explains why carrots and turnips been coming out of the ground already cooked!"

"Turnips?" Magpie repeated, flicking a glance to the window Batch had climbed in. She muttered, "That explains where the turnip came from, anywhich."

"Hoy," said Strag. "Better hurry on. Slink's back." The cat was perched on a fence post staring right at them.

"I'll distract him," Magpie announced. Seeing the two human lasses so near, she added, "I'm going to try on my glamour!" and she took a step and blinked herself into a little brown bird. "Talon, run for the pipe. Thanks, Strag. Blessings!"

"My pleasure, foxlick!" he called.

Magpie made straight for the cat, and she might have looked like a dull garden bird but she flew like a faerie. She zinged spirals round his head as he batted at her, and she scolded, "For shame, you suck-toe, gawping after manny scraps! The Djinn dreamed you finer than that!"

"Djinn?" scoffed the cat. "It's the humans' world now, bird, and we cats'll be snug in their laps while they pick the bones of every last creature! They'll clean their teeth with yours, if I don't first!"

Magpie gave the cat's whiskers a good tweak and darted out of reach so it keeled over backward swinging for her and toppled off the post with a yowl. Then she spun round and saw Talon had made it to the drainpipe and was well up it, so she sped to the windowsill, stepped out of her glamour, and sat herself down to wait for him.

When his head came into view, she said, "Slap thea"" but he knocked her hand away and scowled at her. "Ach, what the skiffle, lad?" she asked, surprised.

"I didn't come all this way to play eejit sports," he growled, climbing up onto the windowsill. "Or to maraud manny schools with some lass who'll tell her secrets to some plucked chicken but not mea""

Magpie stared at him.

"I saved your life," he went on, "and I got you that skiving knife back that you near slit my throat with and you just scolded me for it like I'm some sprout, and I helped knit your wings and I haven't asked you who you really are, even though I've seen you do things no faerie can do and for all I know you're in with that devil yourself!"

Magpie flushed and replied hotly, "I didn't ask you along, if you'll recall," she said, "and I'll be happy to *maraud' without you! But I am sorry if I insulted you by including you in *eejit' games I've been playing with the crows since I was wee. You want to get back to Dreamdark and sit around fretting with all the others, you go. Better still, go on to Never Nigh, where they're saying I'm in with the devil. You'd fit right in! But about the knife . . ." Her hand went to Skuldraig. "The only reason I didn't want you touching it is 'cause it's cursed and if you'd tried to use it, it would have murdered you!"

There was a thick silence between them until Talon said with an awkward frown, "Oh. Well, maybe you shouldn't leave it lying around then."

Magpie's mouth dropped open, and she chuffed indignantly. "I'm sorry if nearly dying, I didn't keep better inventory of my things!" Then a flicker of shame came into her expression and she chewed her lip and said roughly, "But about saving my life . . . of course, thank you. Of course! I'm sorry I didn't say so sooner. I could barely even think; I just lost my friends. . . ."

Now Talon looked ashamed, and his blush deepened. "I know," he said quickly. "It's okay; I'm not grubbing for thanks. Just, all the secrets . . . I thought maybe you'd tell me, but you told that shindya""

"I didn't! Strag knew it all before I did! I only just found out myselfa""

"Found out what?"

"Er," Magpie said, coloring crimson as she tried to imagine telling him what she'd learned. Even in her own head it sounded preposterous, so after a long pause she blurted, "The imps and creatures gave me a blessing ceremony. I don't even remember it. They gave me gifts, like that glamour and seeing in the dark and all. First I knew of it was when Snoshti . . . er, took me, yesterday!"

Puzzled, Talon asked, "Why? Why'd they bless you?"

Magpie shrugged. "Look, you want to maraud or neh?" she asked in a surly voice. "Or you can leave. Whichever."

Scowling, Talon said, "Okay then, let's go," and they turned their attention to the window.

THIRTY-ONE.

Inside was an empty schoolroom with two neat rows of desks facing a world map and a globe, and shelves of books on the far wall. "It looks like the schoolroom at the castle," Talon said, "only huge."

They leapt to the floor and crossed on foot to the door. Peering out, they saw they were at the end of a corridor, with two more doors facing them. The first room was cluttered with painting easels and lumps of clay in sad replicas of manny heads, and it stank of turpentine. The second room stank too, but the odor wasn't turpentine. Magpie fluttered up to the top of a cabinet, and Talon climbed up beside her. Grimly they surveyed the room.

On shelves high and low creatures stood and crouched, frozen still, their eyes peeled open but lusterless. There were varmints with their tiny claws outstretched, tails curled, whiskers eerily still. Mice, voles, raccoons. A long row of dull-eyed birds stood upon the highest shelf and below them, a sad little collection of their nests and eggs. Nothing moved. For a moment Magpie thought the creatures were under some enchantment, but then she saw the jars.

They were jars not unlike those in a manny's pantry, from which she'd once or twice pilfered jelly. But in these were no apricots or honey, only creatures afloat in stinking liquid. Skinks, snakes, tiny frogs. Nothing moved. Nothing breathed. So many eyes in the room, and nothing blinked.

"All dead . . . ," murmured Talon, stunned. Ill from the stink and the horror of it, he quietly took Magpie's hand. She held it tight.

"It's a collection," she whispered, seeing how each dead thing was labeled in neat letters.

"It's murder," Talon answered.

They heard muttering at the same moment their eyes fell on the butterflies. Case after case hung on the wall, of butterflies and moths pinned open dead and arranged like art.

And there in their midst was Batch Hangnail.

He stood poised at the edge of a tall cabinet. He seemed to be wearing wings. As Magpie and Talon watched, he brought his hands together, bent his legs, and sprang. It was the imp version of a swan dive, and for a moment he seemed to float, his luna moth wings catching the air, and a pure and nearly beatific look of hope came into his face. The next moment he dropped like a stone and hit the ground cursing.

"Come on," Magpie said, dropping Talon's hand and taking to her wings. Talon followed, leaping easily from cabinet to cabinet. They reached the corner the imp had plunged from and found there a sickening sight. The luna moth wings had not been Batch's first attempt, clearly. One of the framed displays had been smashed open and plundered, and the cabinet was littered with butterfly carcasses bereft of their wings. One glance over the edge at the floor showed what had become of them. A litter of wings had gathered below in a drift, like leaves beneath an autumn tree, and Batch lay on his side in them, half buried and moaning.

With an icy look Magpie stepped off the edge and dropped to land sharply in front of him. He peeled open one eye and saw her, snapped it shut again, and redoubled his moaning. "Oh, woe . . . ," he whimpered in scamper. "Woe to poor Batch . . ."

"Get up," Magpie said impatiently, nudging him with her foot, then harder when he didn't respond. "I said get up!"

Snuffling, he sat upright. A pretty blue morpho wing was plastered to the dribbling mucus on the side of his face.

"You're lucky those butterflies were already dead, imp, or you'd have a bitter time of it!"

"Already dead . . ." He nodded and moaned. "Mannies killed 'em, not me! I just want to fly away. . . ."

"You didn't really think dead wings would fly you, now, did you?"

The great slubbering imp sat in the sad debris of spent wings and sobbed. Talon came headfirst down the edge of the cabinet like a lizard and stood next to Magpie, and they both listened as the imp moaned about how the magic had worn off his flying surrey as he made his great escape.

"Can't really blame a wretch for wishing to fly," Talon said under his breath.

"Neh, perhaps, so long as he's given up on maiming faeries. But you know what I can blame him for?" She knelt down in front of Batch and forced him to look her straight in the eyes as she said, "For not telling me about his master's tongue."

The life seemed to drain from Batch, so that he drooped into a miserable, quivering mass. "The tongue . . ." He fumbled for the tip of his tail with shaking hands and shoved it into his mouth, commencing to suckle it with loud, wet sounds, and his eyes squeezed tight shut.

"Imp, listen up!" Magpie said harshly, in no mood for pity. "You left out some details before, neh? And because of it I lost some friends to your master! Now you'll tell me something else. You said your master sent you to the Magruwen for a turnip. Well, that's blither! What's he really after?"

With a long snuffling sigh Batch answered her. Speaking around the tail in his mouth, he said something sounding like, "Mommamammid."

"Eh?"

"Mommamammid!" He repeated the slobbering mumble until Magpie reached out and yanked his tail. "Pomegranate!" Batch said as it whipped out of his mouth, flinging a spray of warm spittle.

Wiping her hands and grimacing, Magpie repeated, "Pomegranate?"

Batch nodded.

"Well, that doesn't make much more sense than a turnip! What's he want it for?"

"Flotched if I know!" retorted the imp. His tail groped for a large and particularly lovely monarch wing, and he held it to his face and honked his nose into it repeatedly before crumpling it and tossing it back onto the heap. Particles of orange wing clung to his quivering nostrils.

"A pomegranate," Magpie said to Talon. "What the skiffle?"

Batch caught sight of Talon's face then and did a double take. "Munch! Ye're one of them shouty faeries," he declared, drawing back.

"Aye," said Talon. "You want to tell me what happened to the others you saw?"

The imp sniffed and snuffed, wiped at his eyes and nose with the backs of his hands, pulling himself together. "Master happened," he told him with a shiver that worked itself all the way down his tail and set his rings to rattling.

Talon noticed the brass handles on the cabinets were rattling too and realized it wasn't Batch's shiver that was doing it. He nudged Magpie and said, "Mannies," and they both turned to the door.

"Quick," Magpie said. "Put on your skin. And you, imp, you're coming with us."

As Talon pulled his falcon skin out of his pocket Magpie visioned the glyph for floating and Batch rose right up out of his mound of butterfly wings with a squeal. Magpie stepped hastily into her bird glamour and grabbed his tail.

By the time the crowd of white-frocked lasses thundered into the room for class, all they glimpsed were the shadows of a falcon and a small brown bird darting out the open window, dragging a squealing rodent through the air behind them.

"Hoy! There's the lad in his skin!" Magpie heard Swig's voice. "Jacksmoke, Ming, there's the imp!"

Still in their disguises, Magpie and Talon flew up to the roof of the school as Swig and Mingus came sweeping toward them, cawing out the squawk that would alert the others to come. "Ye seen Mags, lad?" demanded Swig. He gave the little brown bird a curious look as it deposited the imp on the broad stone ledge of the roof, and just then it shivered and turned into Magpie.

Swig and Mingus gasped.

A hint of dizziness came over Magpie, and she teetered slightly on the edge of the roof before Talon reached out fast and grabbed her wrist. "Steady!" he said.

"Eh, Mags, y'all right, pet?" the birds fussed, but their voices were cut off by the noisy arrival of Pup and Pigeon, followed shortly by Calypso and Bertram.