Magpie had forgotten the healing entirely now, and even as the last spells shimmied along the crisp new edge of her dragonfly wings, she rose into the air on them. “The fire that burns its bellows can only turn to ash, he said to the Vritra . . . and . . . he was the bellows! The Blackbringer’s no snag! He might be the Astaroth’s final plague, but the Astaroth didn’t make the Blackbringer . . . the Astaroth is the Blackbringer!”

Still hanging in the air bewildered, Talon asked, “What’s the Astaroth?”

Magpie whirled to face him. Her eyes were alight with revelation. “He’s the worst thing that ever was.” So enthralled had she been in her thoughts, Magpie didn’t feel the impact of them until she heard herself speak those words. Suddenly she paled. Talon’s feet dropped back onto the floor and Orchidspike’s rocker settled with a thud. “The Astaroth . . . ,” Magpie whispered. A look of slow horror spread over her face. “Jacksmoke, the skiving Astaroth . . .”

It all made so much sense now, so much dreadful sense. The Djinn hadn’t killed him. They had translated him, somehow, into that thing of darkness. They had robbed him of his element. And he had returned for vengeance. He was the shadow that stalked the Magruwen’s dreams. “I got to go see the Magruwen again . . . ,” she whispered.

She turned to Orchidspike and said a distracted, “Thank you, Lady,” but the healer was too flabbergasted to respond. “And Talon . . . thank you for the idea.” Even in her daze their eyes caught for a moment, and both felt the air pulse faster around them. Magpie turned to the window, stepped up onto the ledge, and launched herself out. Talon saw her begin to fall in a graceful arc, and he felt his heart catch in his throat, thinking sure her wings weren’t ready, weren’t healed yet—they couldn’t be, after all, it was impossible—but then she flicked them sharply and was propelled forward like a loosed arrow, and he remembered, What do I know of impossible?

“Come on, feathers!” she called back, and the crows roused themselves from their own stunned stupor and squeezed one by one out the window after her.

Talon and Orchidspike turned to each other. Their looks said, How? What? but before they could speak, Nettle and Orion charged through the doorway.

“Talon!” Nettle cried. “Did you feel that magic? The devil—”

“Neh,” Talon said hastily. “It wasn’t. It was the lass.”

“What? How?” Nettle looked around the room. “Where’ve they all gone?”

“To the Magruwen . . .”

“The Magruwen?” Orion gaped.

Talon went to the window. He had a strange look on his face when he turned to them and said, “And I’m going to follow them.”

Nettle and Orion looked at him like he was crazy. “Talon . . . ,” his sister began, “how? Sure they’re flying. . . .”