Magpie nodded. “Sure. They even write their own books. It’s funny about mannies. They’re no eejits. The things they can build, like bridges and ships? And they carve statues you’d swear could start breathing. But . . . they are eejits! All the killing! They’d as soon kill as look at each other half the time. But then I’ve seen ’em sleeping all scooched on one side of the bed so not to wake a little kitty. I can’t figure ’em. Ach, there’s one now.”

Talon spun to see, and he stared, transfixed. “That?” he asked, surprised.

“What, you’ve never seen one?” Magpie asked.

“Neh,” he answered, craning his neck for a clear view of the human lass. She had yellow hair braided back and wore a white frock and shiny shoes. “Doesn’t look like a killer,” he observed, “and she’s not so big as I thought.”

“She’s a real small one. Pretty too. They’re not all, you know. Mannies can be devious ugly. And the smell? Devils got nothing on an unwashed human!” They watched the lass for a moment in silence. She sat herself daintily on a patch of grass and began spinning the wheels of a little toy she’d brought with her.

“First one I ever saw wasn’t pretty at all,” Magpie said. “He was a great, gnarled, evil-eyed brute with a matted black beard and all reeking of brew. . . .” She realized Talon wasn’t listening. He was still staring at the human lass but he’d squinted his eyes and now he stood and leapt nimbly to a higher branch for a clearer view.

She followed him on wing. “What is it?”

He was still squinting. “That thing she’s got,” he said, not breaking his gaze from the lass.

“The toy?”

“It’s no toy. I know it well.”

“What do you mean?” Magpie squinted at it too.

“It’s my granny’s surrey, from the castle. I haven’t seen it since I was wee. How the skiffle did that come here?”

“I can guess how,” Magpie said, her voice hard, “but not why. That meat wouldn’t dare go back down the well!”

“Who?” Talon asked.

“Crows!” Magpie called, and they all fluttered round. She told them, “It seems that gobslotch of a scavenger is in the neighborhood.”

“Ach!” Pup puffed up. “That irkmeat?”

“The one who escaped the dungeon?” Talon asked.

Magpie nodded. “Talon, he’s vermin, but he’s cunning vermin. He was in service to the Blackbringer, though sure not of his own free will. His master sent him to the Magruwen for something; he said it was a turnip—”

“A turnip?”

“Aye, of all the blither! We need to find out what the Blackbringer was really after. Let’s find that scavenger, crows.”

“Now?” asked Pigeon, scratching his head. “What about the Magruwen?”