Page 38 of The Guardians of Dreamdark
“That Rathersting lad said his kinsmen disappeared at Issrin. I reckon that’s our best lead. We’ll go see what we see.”
“But darlin’, ye heard all the Magruwen said, neh, ’bout this thing being beyond ye?”
“Aye, I heard. I’m just thinking to spy and try to get a look at the skiving thing at last. I won’t go take him on, I promise.”
Uneasily, Calypso said, “All right, all right.”
“I want to see Poppy first, so she knows we’re not scorched. And give her this acorn to plant.”
Afternoon was just beginning to fold into evening as they spiraled in toward the Manygreen lands. Just seconds before her feet set down, Magpie heard the scream. She landed in a crouch and swept the garden with a searching look. Calypso likewisewent on alert. The muffled cry came again from beyond a frill of ferns, and in that instant, Magpie was airborne again, rocketing through the lacy fronds.
She saw the creature standing on Poppy for only the briefest moment before she somersaulted in the air and crashed feetfirst into it, sending it sprawling. The impact spun her aside but she landed neat as a cat on all fours, her eyes flashing at the thing that tumbled into a heap, crushing ferns beneath it. She knew it at once by its long rat’s tail and its soft reek of decay. A scavenger imp.
Poppy jumped to her feet and fluttered her wings wildly. “Magpie!” she cried.
“Poppy! Are you okay?”
The imp cowered beneath the wild wing beats and squawking descent of Calypso, and Poppy fluttered her wings again, trying to look at them over her shoulder. “I think so...” she said, distraught. “He...he was trying to take my wings!”
“Takethem?” Magpie repeated.
“He was trying to rip them off!”
Magpie turned to the imp, her chin lowered and eyes glinting dangerously. “Trying to mutilate a faerie?” she cried.
“Neh!” He was wailing in his desperate wheeze of a voice and trying to squirm away from Calypso’s sharp talons. “I just wanted to fly away! Don’t take me back to master!”
“Cussed vermin!” the crow croaked, and Magpie saw the imp peer up at him with one squinting eye, then fall limp with relief.
“Blessings!” Batch whimpered. “I thought ye was the vultures!”
“Vultures?” Magpie demanded, remembering the lad had mentioned vultures. “And master? What master?”
The imp looked at her, snuffled, and gave her a meek, imploring smile. “Missy faerie call off the bad birdy?”
Calypso was standing on Batch much as Batch had stood on Poppy, and Magpie knelt in front of him. She smelled scorched fur and saw how his whiskers were frizzled like burnt broom straws. In the scamper language she’d learned from Snoshti as a babe, she asked, “What happened to you, imp? Fall in a fire?”
“Fire fell on me!”
She gave him a penetrating look, remembering how the Magruwen had accused her of being a treasure hunter.“First an imp and now a faerie,”he had said.
“You been to the Magruwen!”
“The who what?” Batch asked. But Magpie had seen his eyes jump open at the mention of the Djinn’s name, and she knew. Vultures, master, and a trip to the Magruwen? It added up to one thing: This imp was in the middle of her mystery.
She nodded to Calypso to let him sit up. “Bold caper, imp,” she said, musing. “The Djinn King himself!”
“I don’t know what yer talking about!”
“However did you find him?” Magpie asked with a hint of admiration. “He’s been missing for ever so long! Sure someone must’vetoldyou where he was. A faerie told you, I guess.”
“Faerie!” he scoffed. “Faeries couldn’t find yolk in an egg!Ifound him!”
“For true?” Magpie asked with apparent delight. “You found the Magruwen? That’s a...a miracle!”
“It’s a gift,” Batch told her with a dignified sniff.
“Aye, I’ve heard tell. What’s it called, the...serenity?”
