Magpie stared at the moon—she’d never seen so vast a moon—and at its dancing reflection in the river. Her wits sang a muddled warning and it took her several moments of staring to recall that, gloomy as it was, it had been day yet at the castle. And what of the storm? No rain hung in the air here. The grass beneath her feet was dry, and silver-blue in the moonlight. . . .

It came to her where she was, and she drew her hands from out of Snoshti’s paws and backed away, staring at the imp with wide, startled eyes. For this silver land could be none other than the Moonlit Gardens.

“Snoshti . . . ,”she whispered, “am I dead?”

TWENTY-FIVE

TWENTY-FIVE

In the dungeon of Rathersting Castle, Batch Hangnail sat hunched in a corner with his big toes tucked into his nostrils for safekeeping. He hummed to himself and bided his time. Tattooed faces peered in at him from time to time through the little window in the door to his cell, and he pretended to take no notice of them. They brought him food and he ate it with his napkin at his neck as if he were a guest.

He seemed utterly unperturbed to find himself in a dungeon.

As soon as the guards left him alone, Batch stood, stretched, and ambled to the door. From his satchel he took the key he’d found in the mud at the bottom of the Magruwen’s well, and he slid it into the lock. It fit. It turned. The door swung open.

Such was the gift of serendipity, and a lifetime of such miracles had left Batch jaded by them. He simply closed the door behind himself and locked it again, then slunk away, singing under his breath.

“Where ye going? Where ye been?

Nighttime’s dark but morning’s grim.

Hurry where ye’re headed,

forget all that ye’ve seen.

The past is inescapable, the future’s just a dream. . . .”

He made his way through the subterranean passages, his nose and instincts leading him along the least traveled of them. He met no one. He climbed stairs, turned and turned again and, like a rat in a maze, he found his way.

Batch always found what he was looking for.

And he always found what he wasn’t looking for too. Those were the charms of a scavenger’s life, the unlooked-for pretties. This time it was a little pedal vehicle with side-by-side seats and a neat red-and-white-striped awning to keep off the rain. It hadn’t been driven since the chief’s old mum had passed to the Moonlit Gardens decades past, and no one even remembered there was a little door hidden in the yew’s roots that let it out into the world.