The noise of the crows was deafening. Talon stared, knowing the knife at once. Cursed, Magpie had said it was. Cursed, indeed! Vesper wobbled on her knees, her face draining of color. The knife had bit between her shoulder blades, but it was no mere gown or cloak she wore. Bellatrix’s knife had met Bellatrix’s own firedrake tunic, and the knife had not sunk deep enough to stick. It fell to the moss and a thin spray of blood arced from her shallow wound.

Several droplets fell upon the surface of the lady’s mirror.

Talon and the crows saw the glass suddenly warp. A hand broke through its surface and they cried out in surprise. A whole arm reached forth, then a head emerged. “Magpie!” cried Talon as she wrenched herself free of the enchanted mirror, emerging whole from the impossibly small space to lay curled on her side, gasping. Talon leapt to her. The crows squawked and screamed. Vesper sat stunned, staring at the bloodied knife on the moss.

“What happened?” Talon asked, helping Magpie to sit up. “How did you get here?”

Magpie was pale. She carefully flexed her shoulders and looked around as if waking from a dream. She spotted Skuldraig lying on the ground and reached for it, wiping Vesper’s blood from its tip and sliding it back into her sheath. Then she looked at Talon and around at the crows’ anxious faces. “I went back to the well . . . ,” she began.

“Without us? ‘Pie, why would ye go off without us?”

“It was . . . I . . .” She shook her head. “The Blackbringer had been there,” she said. “The Magruwen is gone.”

They stared at her, speechless. “Ye mean . . . ,” began Pup, but he couldn’t find the words.

“I don’t know,” said Magpie quietly.

Nearby, Batch had folded the falcon skin neatly and tucked it into his satchel. He prowled slowly toward Vesper, a look of malicious delight on his face.

“We meet again, my lady,” he said, whisker stubs twitching.

“Hoy!” boomed a voice from the sky, and they all looked up. A flurry of wings swept over Issrin Ev. Faeries. “What’s happening there . . . Lady Queen!” Gasps and shouts went round in the sky, and the Never Nigh search party—for such it was, still hunting for Poppy—descended upon the scene, two dozen strong at least.

“Lady, my lady!” cried Kex Winterkill, falling upon Vesper. “My petal, my blossom, you’re bleeding! How came you here? Who did this to you?”

With a wild look, Vesper lifted a trembling hand and pointed it in turn at Batch and Magpie. “Seize them!”

The gents who leapt at Vesper’s command had never experienced anything like the squall of crows spitting fury around the lass who lay on the moss. None could get near her. They weren’t warriors, these Never Nigh gents. Most were Manygreens or Winterkills or Shineleafs, faeries more accustomed to ferns and wheelbarrows than weapons.