Nettle watched the whole procession go by, faeries, crows, and one cursing imp, her eyes narrow with suspicion. But when they were gone she unwrapped the little paper and hesitantly put the sweet in her mouth, and she felt considerably more forgiving after that.

After a quick encounter with some hot water and soap and a misguided attempt to drag a comb through her hair, Magpie straightened her tunic and headed down the labyrinthine corridors and stairs toward the Great Hall. There she found Talon in front of the massive fireplace with Orchidspike, Nettle, and two older faeries whom he introduced as his mother, Lady Bright, and his uncle Orion, the chief’s brother. Like most of the ladies Magpie had seen about the castle, Talon’s mother—Rathersting by marriage, not birth—had no tattoos. Orion was gruff and grizzled, with a broad scar marring half the black designs on his face.

Magpie curtsied to the lady. Orion nodded to her and she nodded back, but her attention was claimed by the food on the long tables, platters and platters of food. As she greeted the others, her eyes kept returning to it. Chestnut pudding, corn bread, ripe red tomatoes, custard in fig syrup, soft blue beetlemilk cheeses wrapped in leaves, steaming stew, crispy fried squash blossoms . . . Her stomach rumbled loudly and a mere instant later Talon’s stomach cut in even louder.

“Eat, then.” Lady Bright laughed as a biddy set down an enormous tray of hot loaves.

They grabbed plates and heaped them high, then hauled them to a table where they began to eat as if it were a competition. If it was a competition, Magpie lost, for she slumped back in her chair and groaned while there was yet food on her plate. She said, “If I had food like that waiting for me at the end of each day, I’d be fat as a tick on a manny’s fanny!”

Talon laughed into his second custard, and the faeries sipped cider until Orion called the counsel to begin.

Brandy was served and pipes were lit. Everyone but the warriors left the Hall, though Orchidspike and Magpie stayed in their places and the crows hunched in a cluster smoking the chief’s tobacco. Chairs were scraped nearer the fire and elbows slung across knees as the warriors leaned forward to listen.

Orion stood. “Gents,” he declaimed, then gave a nod to Orchidspike, “Lady,” and to Magpie and Nettle, “and lasses. ‘Tis a terrible time! Never in memory have the Rathersting failed in our duty to protect Dreamdark, but now we fail every night. Since the battle at Issrin Ev we been chasing shadows whilst the fiend hunts free! Word’s come that last eve the whole Followtide clan down river way was took and only Codger Spindrift left behind, who’d fallen asleep in his canoe.”

A murmur went round.