“And the faerie who made it fell to the Blackbringer just days ago, as did Talon’s father, who’s the chief of the Rathersting, and his cousins, and many other faeries and creatures too.”

“I warned you about this foe.”

“What good is a warning? I want help catching him! Can’t you see now that there might be something in the world worth saving? Even Fade thinks so, even after what happened to him!”

The Magruwen sighed heavily, and long plumes of black smoke curled from his fiery horns. “Perhaps,” he admitted at last. “But it may be too late.”

“It can’t be, Lord, it just can’t be!” Magpie cried. “Isn’t there some way to make peace with him?”

“Peace? Nay, he is a force of hate. Even at his best he was fickle and tempestuous. Now? He is wrath. He is fury.”

“What did you do to him?”

“We were divided. Three of the Djinn were for ending him. The other three wanted mercy, something that could be undone one day if ever . . . if ever this world failed. The Vritra was for mercy, and it has been his own undoing. Mine was the deciding vote. I chose . . . mercy. Though now it’s clear death would have been more merciful by far, to him and to the world.

“We met in secret. I reached up into the sky and cut down a swath of night and we plucked out all the stars one by one until absolute blackness was all that remained.”

“The heavens with the stars ripped out!” said Magpie. “That was what he called himself!”

The Magruwen nodded. “Out of the fabric of night we fashioned a skin. We let him discover where we were hiding and we lay in wait for him, and when he came sweeping down to earth we closed it around him and sealed it shut and there he was trapped, within a skin of darkness, his terrible power contained.”

“But—” began Magpie. “He has other powers now. And that tongue—”

“Aye. He wasn’t always so. He was only a shadow without voice or strength. But rage is a colossal force, and what the Astaroth lacked in dreams he made up in sheer, wicked will. He disappeared for centuries and then, when the whole world was the battlefield of the devil wars and the race of faeries was young and strong and the tide of the war seemed to have turned at last, he returned. He hunted the battlefields, devouring the wounded, faerie and devil both, and he grew stronger. That hideous tongue he cleaved from a dying devil and kept for himself. He gave himself a new name. He was the Blackbringer, and every living thing he touched turned to shadow.”

“Until the champions caught him and you sealed him in his bottle.”

“Aye. And now, again, he is returned.”

“What does he want?”

“To free himself and destroy the Tapestry.”

“Could he?”