As with any new glyph, Magpie set to work memorizing it. The whorls, angles, and patterns were more intricate than any glyph she had ever learned, and it was three-dimensional, an object in space. A glyph like this could never be recorded in a book but only pass from mind to mind. She concentrated fiercely, tracing its glowing lines until she was certain she knew it by heart. With a tremor of anxiety she nodded, and the Magruwen drew away his hand. The glyph faded. Magpie hoped her memory would serve her to call forth so fierce a spell when the time came. “Thank you, Lord,” she said.

“Give me the dagger,” he commanded her, and she unsheathed Skuldraig and handed it to him. She bowed her head as he touched the blade to her shoulders, saying, “I dub you, Magpie Windwitch, Magruwen’s champion.” Then he took her hand and turned her to face the silent crowd.

Such a ceremony was a thing of legend, and the faeries gawked, unnerved, until Calypso once again broke the silence with a joyous squawk. “Hail, Magpie Windwitch, Magruwen’s champion!” he cried. The words were taken up by the faeries, but their voices were weak and their faces stunned. Talon’s voice rang out above the rest, and his face was alight with joy. Magpie’s eyes fastened on it in the crowd and their eyes held, shining.

Turning to the Magruwen, she said solemnly, “It’s my great pride and honor to serve you, Lord.”

“And you know what your first service must be.”

“Aye, I know.”

He held out the firedrake tunic. “Put this on,” he instructed, and with reverence she took it. The scales felt cool, like enamel, and light, and she knew no better protection could be forged on any anvil. She slipped it over her head, easing her wings out through the apertures designed for them. The tunic was large on her, but she cinched her belt around it and looked back up at the Magruwen.

With a soft sparkle he conjured something in each hand. He presented first a seal bearing his sigil and glinting with dense magicks, and then a bundle wrapped in a familiar tatter. It was a scrap of the Djinn’s burst skin Talon had seen abandoned beneath the smoke of the Magruwen’s cave. Fireproof, as any Djinn’s skin must be, it was rolled tight to contain the precious thing Magpie knew must burn within it, a seed from the mystical pomegranate. A star to light her way through the darkness and, she hoped, to spark the other lights to life.

“I hope you’re right, little bird,” the Magruwen said gruffly.

“Me too.”

“Blessings fly with you, Magpie Windwitch.” The Djinn inclined his golden head and moved away, back toward the hole that would become his new temple. As he disappeared within, Magpie thought of the great place it had once been and would be again, if she succeeded.