Page 29 of The Guardians of Dreamdark (Windwitch #1)

Magpie was lying on the bed with her eyes closed when Talon peered in. The room had cleared out considerably. One bespectacled crow sat reading at her bedside, a bandage wrapped round his neck, and he looked up when Talon hesitated in the doorway. “Come in then, laddie,” he croaked.

Talon entered. “Is she...?”

“Asleep, I reckon, or pretending. She don’t much feel like talking.”

“Ah, well, then I’ll just...” He backed away.

“Neh, lad, stay. Here, sit with her. I’m starved for a smoke.”

The bird got up, and Talon saw he was the one with the peg leg. He thunk ed heavily out of the room and down the corridor. Talon sat on the edge of the chair and looked at Magpie. Even though her eyes were closed, he felt awkward staring, so he looked away.

Magpie wasn’t asleep. Her weariness kept trying to pull her down into darkness, but each time she felt herself slipping away, she struggled against it.

The oblivion and numbness of sleep felt too much like that sea of nothing.

The terrible scenes of Issrin Ev were playing over and over in her mind, and there was no safe escape in sleep.

When Talon looked back over at her, her eyes were open and gave him a start. “Hello,” he said.

She didn’t respond.

“I thought you’d want to know, the vultures are gone,” he told her.

“After the crows ran ’em off, they seemed keen to get out of Dreamdark, back to wherever they came from.

It seems the devil’s cleared out of Issrin, too.

We don’t know where he’s gone. And that scavenger imp?

The crows told us about him. We found him looting East Mirth. He’s in the dungeon now.”

Magpie’s face seemed vacant, and Talon didn’t know what else to say, so he pulled out something he’d tucked into his belt. “I found this at Issrin Ev. I recognized it from the other day in West Mirth, when you near killed me with it.” He laid Skuldraig on the bed beside her.

She stared at it for a long moment, then blinked. She looked up at him. Some expression flickered in her dulled eyes. “You...you touched it?” she asked.

“Eh? Aye,” he answered. “Just to bring it to you.”

“You shouldn’t have. Never touch it! Never again.”

He stared at her, incredulity turning to anger. “What?” He stood up. “Sure that knock on the head is why you’ve forgotten the words thank you , so, you’re welcome. And while I’m saying it, you’re also welcome for your life. But by all means, I won’t touch your knife again.” He spun to leave.

Magpie sat up and opened her mouth to call after him, but dizziness overcame her, and she clenched her eyes shut and clutched at the knife.

“I’d try to keep that close if I were ye, pet,” said a little growly voice, seemingly from nowhere.

“Snoshti?” said Magpie, looking around, and the imp-marm pushed open the carved door of Nettle’s armoire and stepped down out of it, a cascade of Nettle’s clothes spilling after her.

“Who—?” began Talon. “What are you doing in there?”

Snoshti pushed past him.

“How did you get past the castle guard?” Talon demanded.

Hearing raised voices, Orchidspike, Bertram, Pigeon, and Swig peeked into the room. “Ach! Where’d she come from?” croaked Swig.

“Good-imp,” the healer greeted Snoshti, a bit perplexed.

“Lady Orchidspike,” she replied with a nod.

“Did ye come all this way in the storm?” inquired Pigeon warily. “Ye en’t even wet.” Gesturing to the imp’s shepherd’s crook, he added, “And yer beetles. I hope ye didn’t lose ’em in the forest.”

“Don’t fret, friend crow. My beetles are safe in my mistress’s garden.”

“Your mistress?” Magpie repeated, puzzled. “Who—?”

Snoshti smiled, and her black eyes glinted. “She’d like to meet ye, in fact. She’s waiting now, so we’d best hurry.”

“But—” said Magpie.

“Now, hold on—” began Bertram.

“It’s out of the question,” protested Orchidspike as Snoshti came forward and took Magpie’s hands in her little paws. “She can’t...” There was a soft sparkle in the room, and Orchidspike found herself speaking to an afterimage even as she finished her thought: “...leave.”

For a moment an impression of the lass and the imp hung in the air, but within seconds it had glimmered out, leaving no trace of them at all.

Orchidspike, Talon, Bertram, Pigeon, and Swig stared at the empty place where they had been, and the only sound was the lick of the hearth fire and a click as Swig found his beak hanging open and snapped it shut.

The sensation was not unpleasant. Like a swirl of moths, the brief, curious touch of many soft wings, then it was over and Magpie was standing beside a river, her hands still clasped in Snoshti’s paws.

“What the skiffle?” she murmured, fighting her dizziness and looking around.

The castle was nowhere to be seen. What manner of magic had carried her all the way to the Wendling?

The river swept quietly by, shining in the day-bright radiance of a preposterous moon.

Magpie stared at the moon—she’d never seen so vast a moon—and at its dancing reflection in the river.

Her wits sang a muddled warning, and it took her several moments of staring to recall that, gloomy as it was, it had been day yet at the castle.

And what of the storm? No rain hung in the air here.

The grass beneath her feet was dry, and silver-blue in the moonlight. ..

It came to her where she was, and she drew her hands from out of Snoshti’s paws and backed away, staring at the imp with wide, startled eyes. For this silver land could be none other than the Moonlit Gardens.

“Snoshti...” she whispered. “Am I dead?”