The baby, recognizing his sister’s voice, held back his crying and stared up at her. “Poooo!” he said, finally.
The tears came flooding as Prue kissed the soft skin of his brow over and over. Mac babbled merrily in her arms.
The quiet scene did not last long; a loud groan sounded from the far side of the clearing. “Brendan!” Prue shouted, remembering her friend. She ran toward his prone body, sprawled over the two top steps of the stone staircase. The ivy leaf poultice the bandit had made was barely clinging to his shoulder, and it was apparent that the act of drawing the bow and firing the arrow had opened the wound afresh. Brendan’s eyelids were closed, though Prue could see his pupils moving underneath the thin veil of skin, as if he was searching for something, desperately, in the darkness of his unconsciousness.
“Help!” she yelled. “The King needs help!”
A broad swirl of gray and brown birds wheeled above the middle tier of the basilica, and the ground was littered with discarded weapons and fallen soldiers. The surviving Irregulars and the seemingly endless tide of birds continued to pick off the last of the coyotes as the Governess’s defeated army beat its retreat, the coyotes falling to their forelegs to run, casting off the coarse fabric of their uniforms as they went. The south ridge of the clearing still smoldered from the artillery barrage, and a great mantle of smoke hung over the ruined city. Prue heard someone approach; it was the Elder Mystic.
“Let me see,” she said, her voice calm. She knelt down at Brendan’s side and inspected the wound beneath the poultice. “Hmm,” she said. “Blood lost, some flesh—a chance for infection.” She lifted the King up by the shoulder and looked at his back. “An exit wound—it’s gone clean through. That’s good. Here.” She reached over and tore a long swath of fabric from the hem of her robe sleeve and set about packing it against the wound. The pain of the Mystic’s work woke Brendan from his unconsciousness and his eyes flew open, wide and bloodshot. He grasped at his shoulder; Iphigenia held him down. “Easy, King,” she said. “You’ve had a bit of a hurt. Not major, but you surely shouldn’t have been playing archer.”
There was a clatter of footsteps on the staircase; Curtis, flanked by several of his fellow Wildwood Irregulars, was leaping up the stairs. “Prue!” he shouted. “Prue! You won’t believe what’s happened. It’s all so—” He stopped short and stared at the baby in Prue’s arms. A wide grin broke over his face. “Mac,” he said. “You’ve got him.”
“Yep,” said Prue, beaming. “I’ve got him.”
He went to hug her but was again distracted by the supine body of the Bandit King below him. “Brendan!” he said. “How is he? Is he okay? What happened?”
Iphigenia, trussing the King’s shoulder with the bit of tawny fabric, nodded. “He’ll be all right. Might be laid up for a bit—he won’t be robbing any stagecoaches anytime soon, but he’ll heal in time. Important thing is that we get him to the circle of caravans, quickly. There are people there who can see to his wounds.”
The several Irregulars standing next to Curtis vaulted forward at Iphigenia’s request, and hoisting Brendan into a standing position between their shoulders, they walked him off toward the glade above the basilica.
The Elder Mystic wiped her hands on the hem of her robe while Curtis sat down on the top step next to Prue, who was staring down at the child in her arms. Her brow was furrowed, as if she were mulling over some important puzzle.
“Pooo!” the baby was saying.
“I can’t believe it,” Curtis said quietly. “We did it.” He reached out his arms to the baby and Prue smiled, handing him the child. He bounced Mac on his knee, and the baby squealed happily.
Prue squinted over at Iphigenia. “That was amazing,” she said. “Really incredible. If you hadn’t convinced the tree branches to swoop in and grab him—who knows what would’ve happened?”
Iphigenia nodded thoughtfully. “Indeed.” She shifted a little in her seat and added. “But I didn’t ask them.”
Prue looked back at her blankly.
“It hadn’t occurred to me, actually. I was distracted in the moment, as the Dowager was, by the arrival of the Bandit King. The trees, they seem to have done it of their own accord, which is very strange,” continued the Mystic. “Or”—she paused—“they answered the request of someone else.” She studied Prue intently. “But that is highly, highly implausible.”
Prue shyly looked down at her shoes.
“So what’s happened to the Dowager?” Curtis interjected, gesturing over at the glade of ivy behind them. There was no sign of Alexandra’s body; it was as if she’d vanished completely.
“She’s part of the ivy now, dear,” replied the Mystic. “A fate this baby has narrowly avoided.”
“Does that mean she’s, you know,” started Prue, “dead?”
Iphigenia shook her head. “Oh no,” she said. “Not dead. Very much alive. But certainly incapacitated. She’s . . .” The Elder Mystic searched for the right words. “She’s simply changed form. Her every molecule has been absorbed by this plant, which is now returned to its soporific state. Quite incapacitated.” Iphigenia looked off into the distance thoughtfully. “I suppose, now that you mention it, there would be a way to . . . well, hello, look who’s come to see us.”
At the bottom of the steps, a contingent of the Avian army had gathered. The largest of them, a golden eagle, stepped forward and climbed the first few steps of the staircase.
“Is one of you Prue McKeel?” asked the eagle.
Prue looked up. “I am,” she said.
The eagle bowed low. “My name is Devrim. I’m the acting general of the Avian infantry. I understand you were flown, two days ago, by another eagle such as myself.”
“Yes,” she said. “We were shot down. He didn’t survive.”
The eagle’s face was stoic. “It is as we feared.”
Prue’s heart sank and she began to stammer a desperate apology; all the calamity that she’d brought on these poor animals! But before she could speak, Iphigenia seemed to guess at her troubles and stepped forward.