“Could something else have made it?” Talon asked. “If it’s a skin, anything could be inside it.”

Magpie stared. Anything, she thought. Infinite. And she was reminded of the glyph for infinity, that eight laid on its side, and her pulse quickened.

“Lad . . . ,” Orchidspike said in a frightened whisper, and Talon turned to her. He saw a look of puzzlement on the healer’s face and followed her gaze to Magpie’s wings. At first he didn’t know what was amiss. The knitting needles fairly flew along, unfurling neat rows of silk and spells behind them. He looked back at Orchidspike, then hastily back at the knitting needles.

They were moving very, very fast.

Spidersilk was flying off the bobbin.

“Every choice casts a shadow,” Magpie said low to herself, repeating the Magruwen’s words, “and sometimes those shadows stalk your dreams. . . .”

Orchidspike’s old fingers couldn’t keep up with the furious pace of the spells. She lost her hold on the needles and they clattered to the floor at her feet. Magpie didn’t notice and neither, apparently, did the spells. Needles or not, the silk kept right on, zipping off the bobbin into the weave of Magpie’s wings. Orchidspike drew back, astonished.

“He meant the choice between the world and the Astaroth,” Magpie said, speaking faster now, trying to keep pace with her thoughts. “But what does that mean? Fade said the Djinn chose the world, but he never said what they did to the Astaroth. He never said they killed him.”

“Fade?” Talon repeated weakly. He glanced at the bobbin and saw it had almost run out. That would put an end to it, he thought, but when the tail end of the thread disappeared into the weave . . . with no spidersilk binding them, no physical substance at all . . . the spells kept right on going. Magpie’s wings were knitting themselves, and perfectly. As fast as her thoughts moved, the spells moved, caught in the flow of some strong magic like leaves in a river, pulled inexorably along.

And that wasn’t all.

Talon suddenly felt himself lose contact with the floor. He was lifted gently so his feet hung just above it, and he grabbed at the mantel in surprise. He saw Orchidspike clutching the arms of her rocker and the crows treading air with their wing tips as they all floated, helpless and wide-eyed. Magpie too was hovering above her chair but she didn’t seem to notice.

“And its eyes,” she said excitedly. “No snag has eyes like that, like the Djinns’ eyes!”

All around the castle, from the biddies to the stable sprouts to the ink-faced warriors on the ramparts, feet floated off the floor and a collective gasp went up every corridor and down every winding stair.