"Of course we do! The spell was a mistake; we'll put everything back the way it should be as soon as we collect all the pieces."
"I don't know where all of them are. I see you've caught the coatrack…"
"And we have the bowl, and the spoon, and the latch, and the mirror. And my mistress is out looking for the rug right now. As soon as she gets back, we can go get the chair and the bench."
Kelder looked uneasy. "I can't stay very long," he said. "I need to report back to the captain."
Kilisha started to reply, then stopped at a rattling sound from the front. "Could you wait here a moment?" she asked. "It's probably just the coatrack, or a customer-I'll tell him we're closed, if it's a customer."
"I can't stay much longer," Kelder reiterated, but he remained seated.
Kilisha smiled and rose and hurried through the workshop to the parlor, where she found someone pounding on the front door and calling, "Open this door this instant!"
It was Yara's voice.
The coatrack was pacing back and forth nervously at the end of its leash, but Kilisha barely glanced at it as she dashed to the door and tried to open the latch.
It wouldn't budge.
"Just a moment!" she shouted through the door.
"Hurry!" Yara called.
Kilisha was puzzled by her urgency-and by the latch's reluctance. Previously it had seemed all too eager to open when nobody wanted it to, but now it was stubbornly refusing to let Yara in. She slapped at it, hard. "Open up!" she demanded.
She could see the mechanism hesitate.
"Kelder!" she called over her shoulder. "Do you have something that can break a latch? Just snap it right apart, so the little metal pieces spill out on the floor?"
The latch opened, the door swung in, and Yara stumbled across the threshold, her three children clustered about her legs, and a burlap-wrapped bundle in her arms.
"There!" she said, pointing back out at the street.
Kilisha leaned to one side and looked around the door, past her mistress.
Ithanalin's parlor table was standing in the street, pawing the hard-packed dirt with one wooden leg.
"The table!" Kilisha exclaimed. "How did you find the table'?" Then she noticed the large, squirming bundle that lay atop the table-a multi-colored bundle of braided rags. "And the rug!" she said happily.
The rug, the table, the coatrack, the latch, the bowl, the spoon, the mirror, and Kelder had the bench and the chair. Unless she had forgotten something, that only left the couch!
"Bring it in!" she said, gesturing.
Yara was already halfway to the workshop door, and ignored her, but Telleth heard and started back toward the door.
He didn't get very far, though, because at the sound of Kil-isha's voice the table trotted up to the door; Kilisha and Telleth had to step aside to avoid being bumped as it marched into the house.
The tangle of rug was squirming more than ever as it went by, and Kilisha realized it was squeaking, as well. There was something in there, she realized-it wasn't just the rug, but something wrapped in the rug. "What have you got there?" she asked.
The rug hesitated.
Telleth slammed the door, trapping the table in the house, and Kilisha called to the latch, "Lock up tight, please! I think our friend the rug has something he doesn't want to escape."
She wondered what it could be; had there been some other object in the room that got a part of Ithanalin's essence? One of the children's toys, perhaps?
The latch clicked solidly into place, and the rug unfolded, draping itself across the tabletop and revealing its prize.
The captive straightened up and stood there blinking at Kilisha, and she realized at once what it was.
It stood perhaps nine inches in height, naked and sexless, with sagging, dull green skin. It was roughly man-shaped, but with spindly, twiglike limbs, a bulging potbelly, and an oversized head, with immense pointed ears, bulging pop-eyes, and a gaping, lipless, froglike mouth.
A spriggan.
And she thought she knew which spriggan, and why the rug had caught it.
"You're the spriggan that tripped my master, aren't you?" she asked.
It blinked woefully at her, and nodded.
"The rug must have my master's urge for revenge," she said.
The spriggan blinked again, then spread its spindly arms. "Don't think so," it said, in a voice that sounded oddly familiar. Kilisha wondered whether she'd spoken to this particular spriggan before. It might have been hanging around the place for days or months.
"Well, why else would it capture you?" Kilisha demanded.
The spriggan turned up an empty palm. "Don't know," it said. "Not have rug's thoughts."
That seemed very peculiar phrasing for a spriggan-the little idiots usually didn't consider anyone else's thoughts. And that voice sounded more familiar than ever; it was exceptionally deep for a spriggan, almost human in tone…
"Oh, no," Kilisha said.
"Not have rug's thoughts," the spriggan said dolefully, shaking its head. "Not have table's thoughts. Only have little bit of thoughts."
"Of Ithanalin's thoughts, you mean?"
"Yes, yes. Sprigganalin, me. Rest is scattered."
Kilisha clapped her hand over her mouth. Telleth looked up at her. "Did Dad turn himself into a spriggan?" he asked.
"Not entirely," Kilisha said, her words muffled by her fingers.
"That looks like the same one that was here yesterday," Kelder said from behind her.
"Yes, yes!" the spriggan said, nodding. "Saw you at door."
"It's the same one," Kilisha agreed, turning to see the soldier had come up behind her, far more quietly than she would have thought possible.
"Who's that?" Telleth asked, looking at Kelder. No one answered; everyone else's attention was still focused on the spriggan.
"Should I kill it?" Kelder asked, raising his truncheon.
"No!" Kilisha and the spriggan shouted in unison. "I need it alive for a spell, to restore my master," Kilisha explained quickly.
"The spriggan?" Yara said, emerging from the workshop behind Kelder. At the sound of her voice the rug humped itself up and slithered off the table, falling to the floor in a heap and knocking the spriggan off its feet.
Kilisha sprang forward and caught the spriggan before it, too, could tumble off the table. She called to the children, "Find me a cage or a rope or something! We can't let this escape."
Telleth hurried to obey and tripped over the rug, which was straightening itself out and starting toward Yara; Kelder caught the boy before he could fall.
Yara let out a yelp at the sight of the rug climbing over her son's legs and coming toward her; she backed into the workshop. The table was dancing back and forth nervously, obviously confused by all the excitement, and the coatrack had squeezed itself trembling back into its corner, its hooks extended in every direction.
Kilisha clapped her hands to her head at the sound and confusion and sudden motion, forgetting that she held the spriggan in one of them; the feel of its leathery little body against her ear was supremely disconcerting, and it was all she could do to stop herself from flinging the little creature away headfirst.
"Lirrin, help your brother get that rug off his feet, would you?" Kilisha said.
Lirrin and Pirra both hurried to Telleth, who was now kicking wildly as Kelder held him off the ground and the rug struggled to untangle itself. Before either girl could touch it, though, Telleth gave one final kick that sent the rug flying; it soared free and landed on the floor several feet to the side, where it skidded across the planking for another foot or two before it managed to stop.