Page 80 of The Guardians of Dreamdark
“Beyond question!” the Djinn King roared with such scorching finality that Magpie’s mouth, opening out of habit to argue and cajole, found itself empty of words and snapped right shut.
“You will capture the Blackbringer,” the Djinn went on. “And I will seal the bottle. You will attempt nothing else, do you understand?”
Magpie’s mouth had pinched itself into a straight line, and her eyes flashed as she stared up at the Djinn, unblinking, and said nothing. He flared brighter, and still she didn’t blink. Talon looked back and forth between them, the towering figure of living fire with his terrible horns and the twig of a lass perched on a teetering stack of helmets. The stare they held in common was like a fuse running between their eyes that any moment could ignite an explosion.
Finally Magpie said in a tight voice, “I will make no promise to forsake my friends and brothers, if there is any possible chance I might save them.”
When the Magruwen let out an exasperated hiss, Talon had to duck under the spray of sparks.
“Pigtail delivery!” squawked Calypso from the doorway. They all turned to him unsmiling, and he caught sight of Magpie’s face. “Ach,” he said, flying over. “Ye got on yer ornery mouth.” He whispered hoarsely in her ear, “Sure ye’re not defying the Djinn King, pet. I wasthatsure ye were no eejit.”
She turned her stern face on him then, and the line of her mouth softened into a frown. “Ach, well, you may yet be surprised,” she said, then looked back up at the Magruwen. “Lord,” she implored. “Please...how better to start a new age than toright old wrongs? All those sparks the Blackbringer stole leave a lot of cold places behind in the world, empty shoes and torn lives, and why not start fresh by stealing them back and making things whole? Whatever it was faeries did in the past, whatever treachery, it’s done, and sure the past can’t be undone, but it can be forgiven. I swear I’ll do everything I can to make you proud of faeries again, and how much finer will it be to build a new age on forgiveness than on anguish?”
“There will always be anguish.”
Magpie heard what he said, but paid closer heed to what he didn’t say. He didn’t say there would be no new age; he didn’t say he could never forgive. With a stir of hope, she tried one last thing. “And Lord, what of this? I saw all those lights in him! What if he keeps their sparks burning inside him? What if heneedsthem? What if they give him strength, and we can take them away?”
The Magruwen’s vertical eyes looked hard at her. After a moment he said, “Put the hair there, crow, and leave me. All of you.” He turned away. “I’ll have the seal for you tomorrow.”
Magpie waited, holding her breath. At length the Djinn muttered, almost inaudibly, “And one star. One. Only one.”
The faeries had rejoined the crows and were well into Dreamdark when, behind them at the school grounds, the earth began to tremble.
The quaking was rhythmic as the approaching footsteps of some slow giant. In the manor, windowpanes rattled and fell still, rattled and fell still, again and again. White-faced, thehumans listened in silence until the headmistress looked out the window to see smoke roiling out from the old well. Its plumes werebraidingthemselves in patterns as they rose to disperse on the wind. She gasped, and her gasp unlocked the moment. Schoolgirls shrieked. White frocks fluttered.
“To the chapel!” cried the headmistress, grabbing lasses and shoving them in the right direction.
In the dooryard the chickens ate on, merely jumping a little with each tremor. Strag the shindy perked up and looked around. With unchickenlike agility he hopped up onto a fence post and gazed at the column of smoke. He had not yet been hatched the last time the world shook from the force of a Djinn’s hammer on anvil, but he knew the sound for what it was, and his heartbeat quickened. Long had he dreamed that he would live to see the Djinn reclaim the world, and if the old scorch was back at work under the earth, that meant that times, well, they were most certainly going to change.
He threw back his bald head and crowed.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Several times during the flight over Dreamdark, Talon switched crows midair, perfecting a daredevil leap between Bertram and Mingus whenever one or the other began to flag from his extra weight. As they swooped in toward the castle, he spotted his sister on the ramparts and dove off Bertram, flipping once to land in a crouch at Nettle’s feet.
“Talon Rathersting!” she breathed in a deadly voice, grabbing his tunic with both fists and drawing his face close to hers. “Where you been? Flying off like that—”
He answered, “Beyond. I’ve been beyond,” and watched her mouth fall open. Magpie dropped down abruptly beside him, and the crows began to land noisily on the ramparts. “You won’t believe it, Nettle,” said Talon. “We saw the Magruwen!”
“Stubborn old scorch,” added Magpie.
“Himstubborn? I thought I was watching a stubborn match, and I’m still not sure who won!” Talon teased her. “Oh, and by the way,” he added, reaching out to smack her neck, “slap the slowpoke.”
“Skive!” She twisted away, smiling, and said, “I thought you didn’t play eejit sports, eh?”
Nettle, looking back and forth between them with her mouth still hanging open, managed to say, “What?”
“Oh!” Magpie reached into her pocket and produced her last bit of chocolate.
Talon gave it to Nettle. “It’s manny food, Nettle. Try it!”
“Manny food?” she repeated, but before they could attempt an answer, Pup and Pigeon barged forward, tugging at Batch’s tail while the imp still floated above their heads like a balloon.
He had a look of glee on his face and was crying, “Wheeee!!!” and flapping his little arms, until Magpie unspelled him and he plopped back down onto the stones with a howl.
“Back to the dungeon with him,” Magpie said. “But he’s got to have a guard full-time.”
“Neh, not the dungeon!” protested Batch. “Mudsucking munchmeats!”
