“Then please, join us,” said another, and by the way they surrounded her and the hard looks in their eyes, she knew they weren’t asking. She took a good look at their scars and cracked beaks, their eye patches and peg legs, their scorched feathers and bandages, and thought better of trying to out-race them. With a quiver of anxiety she tightened her grip on the handle of the dagger in her pocket and dropped back down into the rubble of broken statues. The crows landed noisily and perched all around her, and the Rathersting prince leapt from his mount and joined the peculiar falcon at the clearing’s edge. They spoke under their breath together. She heard the lad whisper, “Her pocket? How can that be?” and she tensed. They couldn’t know! she thought as they turned and approached her.

“Lady Vesper,” said the lad. “We’re looking for our friend, and good gossip tells us she’s here with you.”

“Here with me?” Vesper asked, spinning and surveying the wastes of Issrin. “As you see, there is no one else here.”

“Aye, ‘tis mysterious strange,” said the crow with the cracked beak. “But who among us hasn’t seen stranger things in the wide world, eh?”

“I must ask you to empty your pockets,” said Talon.

Vesper laughed. “You think I’ve your friend stuffed in my pocket?”

Talon didn’t laugh. The crows drew tighter around Vesper. The falcon just watched. When the lad moved toward her as if he would empty her pocket himself, she hastily withdrew the mirror and held it up. “’Tis only a mirror,” she said, struggling to hide her fury beneath her mask of sweetness.

The falcon scurried forward—it didn’t move like any bird—and she heard it chuckle. Her eyes narrowed. That chuckle . . . “More pretties in the pocket than that,” it said, and she knew. She knew the voice. She stared.

The falcon shimmered before her eyes, and it was like a veil parting to reveal the leering face that haunted her dreams, the one who knew, the only one. The scavenger, Batch Hangnail, from whom she’d stolen the priceless tunic and crown in the alley behind a junk dealer’s shop in Auld Reekie. He, who Gutsuck had sworn was dead, was here, alive and leering! Choking on her rage, she dropped the mirror onto the moss and delved deep in her pocket, coming up with the knife and raising it high. Screaming a stream of profanities that made even the crows’ eyeballs bulge, she plunged it toward the imp.

Batch squealed and cowered.

Vesper’s voice choked off. A strange thing happened. The knife swerved and swung wild, veering through the air even as she clung to it and plunging in a powerful arc into her own back. Her mouth made an O of surprise as she dropped to her knees.