Free The Shadow of Malabron by Thomas Wharton

stays in one place for long. In their ceaseless struggle against Malabron, the Shee have become masters of concealment and illusion. They elude the Night King’s hunters, they strike against his minions and his armies, then they vanish again into the shadows of the forest.”
    While the toymaker was speaking, the fire had dimmed to embers. He stirred the blackened wood with the poker and new flames leapt up.
    “The Stewards could not defeat Malabron, but they did halt him for a time, and heal much of what he destroyed. He has striven ever since against their fading power, and now I fear he seeks again to dominate and conquer all.”
    “But he’s not interested in Wayfarers,” Rowen said. “You told me that once, Grandfather. Why would he send fetches to the Bourne?”
    “You’re right, Rowen, that folk from the Untold have never been of interest to him. He believes we have no stories. And so he has never turned his eye on the Bourne before. But it may be that our good fortune is at an end.”
    “This is all happening now,” Will said in a stunned whisper. “He’s not just some … dark lord from a storybook.”
    “There are some in the Bourne who would like to believe that. But the story of the war against the Night King is true, and it is not over. It reaches into the here and now, into this very room.”
    At that moment there was a tapping at one of the windows. Will jumped. Pendrake strode to the window and pulled up the blind. A tiny ball of bright blueish light bobbed in the dark outside, flicking its fiery form at the pane. Pendrake turned the latch and swung the window open. The ball of light darted inside and hovered in the air.
    “Ah, Sputter,” the old man said. “What do you have for me?”
    The ball of light sped to the toymaker’s desk, where it danced over the surface of a blank sheet of yellowish paper. As Will watched, lines of flowing script began to appear on the paper.
    “What is that thing?” Will whispered to Rowen.
    “It’s called a wisp,” she whispered back. “They carry messages.”
    When it reached the end of the page, the wisp rose sharply and then dropped with a hiss into a bottle of ink beside the paper.
    Pendrake went over to the desk and quickly scanned the message.
    “From the Marshal of the Errantry,” he said, looking up from the paper. “He’s heard about your arrival, Will, and asks me to report to him.”
    Pendrake dipped a black-feathered quill pen in the inkbottle into which the wisp had disappeared. He scratched a few lines on another sheet of paper, and then to Will’s surprise, crumpled up the paper and tossed it in the fire. Almost instantly there was a crackle and a flash of light, and the messenger wisp, or one just like it, came zinging out of the flames. It buzzed around the room twice trailing sparks, bumped into a closed window, then into another. Finally it found the open window and shot out into the air, its hum swiftly fading.
    “You must use up a lot of paper that way,” Will said, scarcely believing what he had seen.
    “It’s salamander parchment,” Rowen said. “When the fire burns out, it will still be there, and blank, to be used again.”
    “That wisp seemed a little … confused.”
    “Sputter’s fine. An Enigmatist tried to take him apart once, to find out what wisps are made of. Grandfather patched him up as well as he could.”
    “There is more to tell you.” Pendrake sighed, taking off his spectacles and rubbing his eyes. He got up from the desk and took his coat from the back of the chair. “So much more. But enough for now. While there is still some night left, get some rest. I’ll tell Edweth not to wake you too early. And, Will, do not fear. You’re safer here than anywhere I know.”
    Rowen escorted Will to his room. He was exhausted, but too shaken by what he had heard to feel sleepy. And he had the nagging feeling that Pendrake had kept things from him. While he was speaking of the Master of Fetches, and the