“It’s the fifth glyph for phantom,” he told her, “joined with what you want your phantasm to be—I used ‘self’ there, but you don’t have to. Then you just picture what you want it to do.”

Magpie’s brow furrowed in thought. “I only know four glyphs for phantom,” she said.

“Oh, aye?” he asked casually, adding, “I know six.”

“Six?” she demanded. “Flummox me! Can you show me that one you just did?”

“Show you?”

“Aye, look, just vision it and I’ll use memory touch to see it.”

“Memory touch? I read about that in one of Orchidspike’s books. . . . You’re a memory mage?”

“A what? I don’t know. I just learned the spell from some Sayash faeries. I’ll teach you, if you teach me the phantasm.”

So Talon visioned the glyph and Magpie touched her finger to his brow and the glyph burned to life brightly in her own mind too. Within a few moments she had a phantasm of her own doing a silly dance, and it was soon joined by another of Talon’s, which mimed kicking Magpie’s in the fanny. “Eh!” cried Magpie, and they dueled with their phantasms until they were laughing too hard to hold the glyphs clear, and the images faded away.

Once they’d stopped laughing, Magpie used the mirror image of the memory touch spell to touch the glyph into Talon’s mind, and he carefully committed it to memory before opening his eyes.

Bertram had begun to snore on his perch, and Calypso gave Magpie a stern look and said, “’Pie, for the love of all that’s blessed, sleep.”

“Ach. Bossy bird,” she grumbled, lying down and nestling herself into the silk. “Good night, Talon,” she said, adding, “and once we get back to the castle, you have to teach me the sixth glyph for phantom.”

“Sure,” he said softly. He closed his eyes. The castle, he thought, and a strange reluctance overcame him at the reminder of his real life. Not that the day had been all magic— neh, he felt sick just remembering the dead things floating in jars—but the thought of returning to the castle ramparts to stand watch, after all he’d seen today, all he’d done, made him feel dull and weary.

“It was a lot to take in all at once today, neh?” Magpie whispered, as if reading his mind.

“Aye,” he whispered back. “This what it’s like for you every day?”

“Neh, we keep clear of mannies as much as we can. But there’s a wide lot to see in the world, sure, and a lot to do. And not just catching devils either. There’s spells to save, and things to steal back from plunder monkeys, and temples to find, and the Djinns’ old libraries to explore.”

“So that’s what you do?” he asked. “You go around hunting down spells and things?”