“The silk is a binding for the spells,” Orchidspike explained as she purified her knitting needles in the balm. “I vision a glyph into every stitch and the silk knits them together into a whole. It takes a few days for the glyphs to bond and transmute to living tissue, then the silk threads melt away, leaving behind only wings, real as they ever were.”

“Does that mean I won’t be able to fly for a few days?”

“Maybe longer, lass. This is quite severe.”

Magpie frowned and grumbled. Then Orchidspike’s knitting needles caught her eye. “Those must be djinncraft,” she said.

“Aye, my foremother Grayling chose them long ago from among the Magruwen’s treasures.”

“Did your apprentice use them to make that skin of his?”

“My what?” asked Orchidspike, startled, for the word apprentice had been much on her mind. “Ah, Talon? Neh, lass, the prince isn’t my apprentice.”

“Prince?” Magpie repeated.

“Aye, Talon will be chief one day, after his father . . .” Her voice wavered. “Indeed, that day may be at hand.”

“Would the Rathersting have a clan chief who’s a scamperer?” she asked, and at that moment Talon came back into the room. He stiffened. Magpie had simply been curious—she’d scarcely ever known a scamperer; they were exceedingly rare—but she saw his face color with shame and she cursed herself. He avoided meeting her eyes and she could think of nothing to say that wouldn’t make it worse, so she just frowned and resolved to speak no more.

When Orchidspike was ready to begin, Calypso tried to talk Magpie into lying down to sleep through the healing. “Ye can’t just go and go, ‘Pie, after what ye been through. Ye’re pale as biscuit flour and yer folks would have my feathers for it. Ye need sleep.”

But she resisted, seating herself on a low stool in front of Orchidspike’s rocker. “My mind’s buzzing too much. I wish I had my book to write in.”

“Here, Mags,” said Mingus, holding it out to her. “I got it from the caravan for ye.”

“Ach, Mingus, thank you,” Magpie said, taking it and giving him a kiss on his beak while he shuffled his feet and examined the floor.

She held her book in her lap and unspelled it so it fell open to the page she’d last written. She’d been en route to Dreamdark then and knew the devil only as “the hungry one.” So much had happened since! She had found the Djinn King in the bottom of a well. She had fallen through the darkness of the Blackbringer and lost two dear friends in it. She had journeyed to the afterworld and had her hair braided by Bellatrix! She had fallen off a cliff and been caught in a dragon’s fist. And she had learned of a gaping hole in the legends she had always cherished. An eighth ancient!