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Chapters (45)
  1. Title Page
  2. Copyright Page
  3. Dedication
  4. Acknowledgements
  5. ONE
  6. TWO
  7. THREE
  8. FOUR
  9. FIVE
  10. SIX
  11. SEVEN
  12. EIGHT
  13. NINE
  14. TEN
  15. ELEVEN
  16. TWELVE
  17. THIRTEEN
  18. FOURTEEN
  19. FIFTEEN
  20. SIXTEEN
  21. SEVENTEEN
  22. EIGHTEEN
  23. NINETEEN
  24. TWENTY
  25. TWENTY-ONE
  26. TWENTY-TWO
  27. TWENTY-THREE
  28. TWENTY-FOUR
  29. TWENTY-FIVE
  30. TWENTY-SIX
  31. TWENTY-SEVEN
  32. TWENTY-EIGHT
  33. TWENTY-NINE
  34. THIRTY
  35. THIRTY-ONE
  36. THIRTY-TWO
  37. THIRTY-THREE
  38. THIRTY-FOUR
  39. THIRTY-FIVE
  40. THIRTY-SIX
  41. THIRTY-SEVEN
  42. THIRTY-EIGHT
  43. THIRTY-NINE
  44. FORTY
  45. FORTY-ONE

Then Poppy screamed and her body lurched in Magpie’s arms. Panicked, Magpie held on and was dragged along with her. The Blackbringer loomed. The long tongue was coiled around Poppy’s ankle and he was reeling her back inside him.

With one arm still wrapped around Poppy, Magpie groped for a handhold with the other. She found one and held tight, straining. Through the haze of blood obscuring her vision, she could see Poppy’s white face, and their eyes met and held. “I’ve got you!” Magpie said. Her feet were braced against a broken statue and one hand clung to a coiled tree root, but she could feel herself begin to tremble. She was weak, but more than that, she felt . . . insubstantial, like she might dissolve into the air.

And the Blackbringer kept coming. A tide of darkness swallowed Poppy’s feet and then her legs. Her eyes pleaded. Magpie tried with all her strength to haul her away but the tongue, withdrawn back into the dark now, held fast. And Magpie could only watch and hold her as Poppy began to dim.

“Poppy!” she screamed.

But Poppy no longer saw her. Though still half in the world, she was already lost in the dark. She faded. The color drained from her flesh and, with horror, Magpie realized she could see through her to the ground beneath. Then she couldn’t hold her anymore. There was nothing to hold. With a final shimmer the faint ghost-image of Poppy opened her mouth to scream but no sound came out and she disappeared, leaving only her shadow behind where she had lain.

Magpie lay bleeding on the stone with her arm curled round Poppy’s shadow. Then even that was wrenched from her as the Blackbringer dragged it too into the darkness.

There would be no diving in this time to pull Poppy out. She wasn’t there. She wasn’t anywhere. She had been unmade. She had ceased to be.

The sound inside Magpie’s head was terrible. It was the Blackbringer’s whisper. “Aye, the old wine,” it said. “How wonderful . . .”

And it seemed as if the clot of darkness grew.

TWENTY-ONE

TWENTY-ONE

Across the mouth of the Deeps and up the slope of Dream-dark Crag, the Rathersting warriors on the castle walls heard the chaos of birds and took flight. The pale moon glittered on their cool knives and bared teeth as they raced toward Issrin Ev, whooping their bloodcurdling battle cries.

Talon was not with them.

Nor was he back at the castle, cursing his wings and his weakness. If he had been, the sun would have risen the next morning on a doomed world. Because if he hadn’t already been out stalking vultures, his own two blades wicked in his fists and his eyes ferocious in the gloom, Magpie would not have survived.

And without Magpie Windwitch, neither would the world, for long.