“No money, no magicians,” Quentin said. “Those are the breaks. I think you should leave now.”

“I did not want Lionel to kill Pushkar! I did not tell him to. I don’t know why he did. I was afraid of him!”

It already seemed incredible that they’d been so scared of the blackbird. It wasn’t very frightening now. It must have run through all its resources staging their job, and without Lionel and its hired hands it was just a talking bird, nothing more.

It didn’t appear to want to leave.

“You have to help me.”

“No,” Plum said, looking up at it. “We really don’t.”

“The birds here despise me. I am very hungry. I have eaten garbage.”

“I don’t care what you’ve eaten,” Quentin said. “We’ve got more important things to worry about. Leave or we’ll throw you out.”

Though he wasn’t exactly sure yet how they were going to catch and expel the thing. He wasn’t looking forward to that chase scene.

“Please,” it said again. “He will kill me!”

“Who?”

The blackbird didn’t answer, just stared around the room anxiously, from one to the other of them. It didn’t want to say. Quentin didn’t feel the slightest bit sorry for it.

“It’s talking about Ember.”

Even the bird jumped, as if it hadn’t realized Alice could talk. Her expression didn’t change. She wanted everybody to know that her emotional investment in this drama was nil.

“What did you say?”

“That’s Ember’s bird. I met it in the mirrors. It begged me not to kill it. I can’t think why I didn’t. I’m going to bed.”

On her way out she nearly walked into a wall out of habit—as a niffin she would have gone right through it. She left an uncomfortable silence behind her. From behind the drawn curtains they heard a truck come rattling slowly down the narrow street. Quentin waited for it to pass by.

“Is that true? Ember sent you?”

“Please.” It had lost all of its avian loftiness now. It trembled. “He will kill me.”

“He won’t,” Plum said, “because we’ll kill you first.”

“He sent me to get the suitcase. I do not know why. He would have sent a bigger animal,” it added almost apologetically, “but He needed one capable of flight. To go through the mirrors. He gave me some money, and the spell to make Lionel once I got here.”

“Why did He want the case? Was it the knife, or the book? Or both?”

“I don’t know!” the blackbird wailed. “I don’t know! I didn’t know what was in it! Truly!”