“Stupid! It’s underneath! I’ve got it skewered on my talon!” Elda squawked.
“You dipped your talon in a demon?” Don said.
“Ooh!” Elda yelled. She dropped to sitting position, put the orange fruit carefully down on the terrace, and held out her right set of talons with a piece of paper stuck on the middle one. “Someone get it off for me. Carefully.”
Blade went and worked the paper free. Tipping it into the light from the front door, he read in his father’s scrawling writing, “‘Elda, here’s a new fruit for you. Save me the rind and the pips and I’ll look at your story tomorrow. I’ve got to spend the night at Nellsy’s inn.’ This doesn’t say a word about demons, Elda.”
“Come and see,” Elda said portentously.
Blade looked at Don. “Your turn.”
Don snapped his beak at Blade and stood up. “Where?”
“His study, stupid!” Elda said. She galloped back into the house with Don lazily slinking after her. Blade heard their talons clicking up the stairs and hoped that would be the end of the fuss. It was all typical Elda. He had almost forgotten the matter when Don reappeared, walking on three legs, with his tail lashing anxiously.
“She may be right about the demon,” he announced. “He’s not in the house, and he’s left four demonologies and a grimoire open on his desk. Here, Lydda. He left this for you. It was on the grimoire making the page greasy.” He handed Lydda a pasty on a piece of paper.
Lydda rose up on her haunches and took the pasty. She sniffed it. She sliced delicately into the crust with the tip of her beak. “Carrots, basil, eggs,” she murmured low in her throat. “Saffron. Something else I can’t make out. This is elegant.” Then it occurred to her to look at the paper.
“First things first, eh, Lydda?” Kit said. “What does he say?”
“Only ‘This seems to be High Priest Umru’s favorite food. Save me supper. You have to conjure fasting.’ Is that true?” Lydda asked. “Can’t you really eat anything before you call up a demon?”
“Yup,” said Kit, who had no idea really. “I don’t somehow think you’d be much good at the job.”
Lydda ignored him. “Where’s Elda?”
“In the kitchen fussing and eating her fruit,” said Don. “She’s got the idea the demon’s going to kill Dad. I told her not to be stupid.”
“There’s nothing we can do, anyway,” Kit said.
They settled down again in the twilight, all just a little worried. Mara had long ago told them the story of the blue demon, but as Shona said, it was a little late to stop Derk now. The pink of sunset sank away into dimness, and their worry sank with it. The evening was just too peaceful.
Sometime later Callette heaved herself up the steps in the gloom and dumped a large, chinking bundle triumphantly down on the terrace. “There. Finished! One hundred and twenty-six gizmos! I said I’d finish before the light went and I did!”
“Just as well,” said Shona. “I didn’t want to panic you, but there was a message today to say the dragon was coming to fetch them tomorrow. May we see?”
Callette was only too ready to show off her gizmos. She proudly unwrapped the sheet around them. “Is Elda back yet?” she said.
All their heads bending to look at the glimmering heap came up to look at Callette instead. “What do you mean?” said most of them.
“She went flying down the valley while I was wiring the last gizmo,” Callette explained. “She went on about Dad and a demon, but I didn’t listen. It was fiddly work.”
“When was this?” Kit asked tensely.
Callette shrugged up her wings. “Half an hour ago? It was still quite light.”
“Someone go and make sure she’s not in the house,” Kit snapped. “Everyone else search the grounds.”
Callette shrugged again and rewrapped her bundle. She took it back to her shed, and then, for the next ten minutes, she sat quietly on the terrace while everyone else ran about calling Elda. “I didn’t think she was back,” she said when they all came back panting. “That’s why I asked. I’d have seen her coming from my shed.”
“If she’s gone to Nellsy’s inn,” said Shona, “that’s fifteen or twenty miles off, and it’s almost dark now! Dad’s not going to forgive us if she gets lost.”
“Or mixed up with a demon,” Blade added.
“Let’s get going,” said Kit. “We’ll fly after her. Shona and Blade, you stay here in case she comes back while we’re out.”
“Oh, no,” said Shona. “We may not have wings, but we’re going, too.”