But he jerked his hand back and wailed. The terrible voice had surfaced inside his head. “The pomegranate,” it had said, and he remembered why he had come. Snuffling, he turned from the wings and faced the Magruwen. “My lord,” he said, “the treasure I desire is not here.”

“What is your desire?” the Magruwen asked.

“Your pomegranate, my lord, is my desire.”

The Magruwen’s flames quieted, clenching into a white-hot ball at his very core. “What did you just say?” he asked in a low, dangerous tone.

“The pomegranate,” cried Batch. “The pomegranate!”

Belatedly the Magruwen hissed, “What was the answer to your riddle?”

“The answer is my master! Escorted through the sky by vultures! He said you must give me what I want if you don’t guess it!”

“I must? Your master seeks to bind me to the Djinn’s honor?”

Batch nodded uncertainly.

The Magruwen laughed. It started low as a cat’s yowl but grew to raging and the old skin burst open and fell away in tatters. Uncloaked, he stood before Batch as a tornado of fire, frenzied and churning, and the imp cringed away from the dazzle. Smoke crept back in like a tide to swallow the treasures.

At last the Magruwen’s awful laughter subsided. “Very well,” he said, “since honor requires it.” And while Batch crouched with his face in his hands, the Magruwen stretched out long arms of smoke. They grew longer and longer until they disappeared through the ceiling of the cave. Up they reached, across strata of earth and rock and root, through the bleached ribs of a dragon and a dark spring swum by water elementals and their imps, through layers of rabbit warrens and forgotten plague cemeteries, finally reaching the school vegetable garden. Smoke fingers plundered among the roots until they found what they were looking for.

In the garden a human lass sat back with a gasp as a turnip top was tugged right out of her hand to disappear in the soil. Gophers, she thought, and moved down the row with a nervous glance at the smoke curling up from the hole.

“Here’s your pomegranate,” said the Magruwen, tossing Batch the scorched turnip. “Send your master my regards.” Preoccupied by the activities of his tail, Batch missed and the vegetable skittered into the smoke. He fumbled for it and shoved it into his satchel without a glance. He succeeded in hooking the bat wings and drew them to him beneath the smoke, but just as he made to shove them into his satchel he saw a salamander clinging to them. It grinned at him before sinking its teeth into his fingers. “Aiii!” he shrieked, dropping the wings.

“So you’d like to fly, would you?” asked the Magruwen.

Batch brightened. But before he could answer, the Magruwen sucked all the encircling smoke into himself and blew.

A fiery gust somersaulted Batch backward and right out the door. Up, up, and up the well he rocketed until he flew out into the world and landed in the branches of a tree. He lay there, skin singed bald and whiskers sizzled to bristles, unconscious and twitching, for quite some time.