Free Blackbringer by Laini Taylor Page B

dull glint caught her eye. She looked closer, reached out, and touched the little smooth spot protruding from the wood. It was brass.
    It was a doorknob.
    Magpie backed away on her wings and sank onto a branch. She understood. When a tree gives itself to be a faerie’s home it expands to make rooms and corridors that flow within its living shape. And as it opens, so can it choose to close. The linden had closed, and the only sign her house had ever been here at all was a small protrusion of brass. Magpie dropped her face into her hands. It had been those little rooms that her mind conjured up to give any meaning to the word home, and now it was as if they’d never been.
    “Magpie?” inquired a soft voice.
    Magpie looked up sharply. A red-haired faerie lass—a beautiful faerie lass—stood balanced on the tapered end of the branch, smiling tentatively. “Who wants to know?” Magpie asked.
    “It’s me, Poppy,” said the other lass.
    “Poppy?” Magpie repeated, staring.
    She came closer, knelt at Magpie’s side, and tucked her huge wings behind her. “I looked for you in the play,” she said. “I thought if you were in it you’d turned into a crow, though now I see you’ve turned only halfway.” She nodded to Magpie’s skirt and smiled. “Fine feathers,” she said.
    Magpie wondered whether she was being mocked. This faerie was certainly not the type to wear crow feathers! She was beautiful even beyond the usual measure of faerie beauty and as poised as a flower. She wore rose-colored silk and her hair was upswept in a spiral of braids, each one a different shining hue of copper, bronze, or crimson. Next to her Magpie felt like she was wearing a bird’s nest on her head.
    “It reminds me of that time,” the beautiful lass said, “when you conjured yourself imp whiskers so you could look like Snoshti.”
    Magpie looked closely at her brown eyes then. They were warm as a hug, and she knew that it was indeed Poppy and that there was no mockery in her. “Poppy!” she said, and threw her arms around her earliest friend.

    “Blessings, old feather,” Snoshti said, coming up to Calypso behind the stage caravan where he awaited his next cue.
    “Ah, madam, we meet again,” he said, sweeping off his crown and bowing low.
    “So ye’ve kept her alive, and that’s something,” the little imp said grudgingly.
    “Been the pleasure of my long life,” Calypso replied.
    “Where is she?”
    “Hiding.”
    “Eh?”
    “Stage fright,” he said with a shrug.
    “We are talking of Magpie Windwitch?”
    “Aye, but don’t fret, Good-imp. It’s pure the only thing that frights her.”
    “So she’s coming on well?”
    “Perfect, just perfect. Clever and kind and mysterious strong.”
    Snoshti squinted at him. “Gifted?”
    “Aye, d’ye doubt it?”
    “Does she know it?”
    “I haven’t told her anything, if that’s what ye mean. But someone had better do, soon. She’ll start thinking she’s tetched.”
    “Eh?”
    “Not an hour ago she turned the queen’s hair to worms—”
    Snoshti snorted. “Worms?”
    “Aye, worms. Shivered herself some, I ken. The lass has got magic in her she don’t know what to do with.”
    “Is that why ye’ve come now? It en’t time. She’s still a sprout.”
    “Aye, that she is.” Calypso sighed. “Didn’t Algorab tell ye not to get in a fuss? ’Pie had her own reason to come. She means to find the Magruwen.”
    Snoshti snorted again. “The Magruwen? She’s afraid of the stage but wants to find the Magruwen?”
    “That’s my ’Pie. Ye wouldn’t know where we might find him, now?”
    “Neh, bird! And ye know how we’ve searched!”
    “Ach, well, I thought not. Now if ye’ll pardon me, madam, my cue. We’ll talk more later?” He hopped toward the stage entrance. “Over scones?” he called back to her.
    Snoshti chuffed. Scones! Crow was begging for treats. Well, small price. Her lass was back. She reached out to catch a wandering beetle with her