“Poppy!” Magpie gasped, then looked quickly back down at the darkness sweeping toward her. Gathering herself up, she leapt skyward, twisting to see that the darkness didn’t follow. She raced to Poppy. “Come on!” She grabbed her friend’s hand. “We got to get out of here!”

“Aye,” Poppy gasped, winded and drinking in great gulps of breath. “Devil . . . coming!”

Magpie swung around to see the thing melting back into the deep shadows below. “I know,” she said. “He’s down there—”

“Neh! Another—” Poppy cried, just as a winged thing came wheeling over Issrin and let out a piercing cry.

It was one of the ugliest snags Magpie had ever seen. Its mouth was a bloody tatter full of teeth, and its skin was drawn so tight over its sharp skeleton that its bones seemed ready to pierce right through. “Now that’s a devil,” she said.

“Vesper set him on you!” Poppy told her, backing away from the thing in horror.

“Eh? That priss has a snag slave?” Magpie asked, dumbfounded.

The hideous thing whirled in the air on its jagged wings and caught sight of Magpie. It hissed, “Feathered faerie . . . ,” and licked the bloody edges of its maw.

As it started forward, Poppy cried, “Magpie! What do we do?”

Magpie shoved Poppy aside as the snag came, and on her sleek wings she darted into its path. It hurtled at her, shrieking, and reached for her. In one fluid motion Magpie spun and grasped the hooked claw at the crook of its wing and whipped round, straining against it with all her weight. Tilting off balance, the devil went scudding into a tree trunk.

Magpie glanced at the darkness below as the snag spun and came at her again. This was a dance she knew well, this devil waltz. Many times had she danced it, coaxing the eejits to hurl themselves at her, maneuvering easily out of their way as they thudded again and again into ground or cliff or whatever solid surface was at hand, until they grew dizzy, or tired, or crazed, and then she captured them. She had no time for that now.

She saw the vultures shake open their wings and lurch from their perches. She still felt the hunger of the dark thing lurking in the courtyard below.

She had to get away from here. To get Poppy away.