Magpie looked where he pointed, a drainpipe up to an open second-story window. “Talon, you up for a shimmy?” she asked him.

He just gave her an icy look and nodded sharply, and Magpie frowned uncomfortably.

“Ye’ll come back and see me, missy?” asked Strag.

“Aye, we’ll be back, and soon. We got to go and see the Magruwen.”

“Skaw!” cried Strag. “The Magruwen?”

“Aye, he’s down the well there. Didn’t you ever know?”

“The well?” The shindy looked stupefied. “Neh! Sure but the mannies think it’s cursed and won’t go near it cause of the smoke and the smell of sulfur! Ye’re saying it’s the Djinn King . . . ?”

“Aye, and he’s woken up from his long sleep.”

“The old scorch himself! Explains why carrots and turnips been coming out of the ground already cooked!”

“Turnips?” Magpie repeated, flicking a glance to the window Batch had climbed in. She muttered, “That explains where the turnip came from, anywhich.”

“Hoy,” said Strag. “Better hurry on. Slink’s back.” The cat was perched on a fence post staring right at them.

“I’ll distract him,” Magpie announced. Seeing the two human lasses so near, she added, “I’m going to try on my glamour!” and she took a step and blinked herself into a little brown bird. “Talon, run for the pipe. Thanks, Strag. Blessings!”

“My pleasure, foxlick!” he called.

Magpie made straight for the cat, and she might have looked like a dull garden bird but she flew like a faerie. She zinged spirals round his head as he batted at her, and she scolded, “For shame, you suck-toe, gawping after manny scraps! The Djinn dreamed you finer than that!”

“Djinn?” scoffed the cat. “It’s the humans’ world now, bird, and we cats’ll be snug in their laps while they pick the bones of every last creature! They’ll clean their teeth with yours, if I don’t first!”

Magpie gave the cat’s whiskers a good tweak and darted out of reach so it keeled over backward swinging for her and toppled off the post with a yowl. Then she spun round and saw Talon had made it to the drainpipe and was well up it, so she sped to the windowsill, stepped out of her glamour, and sat herself down to wait for him.

When his head came into view, she said, “Slap the—” but he knocked her hand away and scowled at her. “Ach, what the skiffle, lad?” she asked, surprised.

“I didn’t come all this way to play eejit sports,” he growled, climbing up onto the windowsill. “Or to maraud manny schools with some lass who’ll tell her secrets to some plucked chicken but not me—”

Magpie stared at him.