“ ’Tis a bad crush, indeed,” Orchidspike said in a low voice to Calypso, over by the window. “But I can mend it. Don’t frazzle yourself.”

“But Lady, it en’t just the wings. I don’t like the look in her eyes. It’s like she en’t inside herself.”

“She’s in there, dear. She’s just gone deep. She’s in shock.”

“But what if . . .” Calypso hesitated. “What if it did something to her, right? That devil.”

Orchidspike considered this. “Do you know what it was?”

“It’s being called . . . Blackbringer.”

Orchidspike raised her eyebrows. “Blackbringer?”

“Aye, Lady. D’ye know of it?”

Her bright eyes drifted into memories, back and back through the centuries. She said, “He was just a fireside story, something to frighten bad sprouts. A bogeyman, like old Rawhead.”

“Ye’re saying he weren’t real?”

“Neh, I don’t know. If he ever was real, it was long before my time. Understand, bird, no devil has troubled Dream-dark all my long life, and much longer still. Not since the Dawn Days.”

“Ye think anyone could remember that far? Remember the old stories?”

“I can’t think who.” Orchidspike shook her head wistfully.

“We could ask the trees?” suggested Calypso.

“Ah,” Orchidspike answered sadly. “Bless us, we lost that language long ago.”

Calypso cocked his head. “Truly? Flummox me, I had no notion how rare she was.”

“Who, bird?”

“Poppy Manygreen, Lady. Magpie’s friend. She could speak with ’em.”

“What?” the healer asked abruptly, startling Calypso. “A Manygreen? A faerie with that gift? Here, in Dreamdark?”

Calypso nodded.

“A lass?”

Again he nodded.

“But . . . where is she now?”

“Lady?” Calypso scratched his head with his foot. “She’s the one the devil got last night. She’s gone.”

Orchidspike was silent, and Calypso watched, alarmed, as her expression went slack with tragedy. She lifted trembling hands and laid her face in them. A shudder went through her, and Calypso heard her whisper, “I’d stopped looking.”

Western Dreamdark lay quiet under a heavy sky. No smoke curled from the chimney of the healer’s cottage, and the hamlets on the Sills were all deserted. In Pickle’s Gander and East Mirth laundry snapped forgotten on the lines as a wind gathered and shutters began to slam. The faeries had flown.

They were tucked safe into the Great Hall of Rathersting Castle where the fireplace alone was bigger than most cottages. The sprouts were whooping round the high eaves like warriors, but the older folk clustered together, tense and whispering. A summer storm was weighing down heavy as an iron lid upon Dreamdark. And out there in the blustering trees, they knew, something lurked. It had swallowed their neighbors in the night and snatched the warrior chief from the sky.