The bird cocked her head to one side, considering the question. "Not all that fond, I wouldn't mind being an ea — "
"Good."
A brilliant, flame-colored light enveloped bag, bird and Siegfried's head, blinding him. Leopold shouted. For a moment, all that Siegfried could see were flashes of color. He knuckled his eyes, blinking away tears of pain and hoping he hadn't just been permanently blinded.
Odd. The bird had gotten alot heavier. And...warmer.
His vision started to come back but — it was strangely bright on the side where the bird was. As things around him blurred and swam back into focus, he turned his head to see what was so bright, and so big. What was on his shoulder was a bird, still. She was easily eagle-sized, though not eagle-heavy. She had a tall curving crest of flame-like feathers, bright gold eyes, red-and-gold wings now held open with delight, and a pair of scintillating tail-plumes that trailed down his back and ended in a pair of peacocklike eyes. Allof her feathers were red and gold, and glistened and sparkled like living flames.
"Bird?" he said incredulously. The bird was craning her long neck around and looking down at herself in astonishment.
"I — you made me a firebird!" she exclaimed in delight. "You made me a firebird! Is this permanent?"
"Unfortunately, yes, I'm sorry," Jimson said apologetically. "There was no time to do anything reversible."
"Oh, don't be sorry! I'm not!" The bird lifted her head and gave vent to a joyous trill. If anything her singing was sweeter. "I don't mind dodging a few feather hunters to be able to look likethis! Do I turn into a human girl, too?"
Jimson shook his head. "Unfortunately, no, I'm — "
She caroled with delight. "Even better! No clumsy old men wanting to marry me and sending people to catch me so they can!"
Jimson coughed. Evidently he had not anticipated how pleased she would be. "Erm, well, good. I'm glad you approve. I apologize that we did this, but Siegfried may need your new powers when — "
"Siegfwied! Siegfwied! Wait!"
Once again, Jimson was interrupted. This time it was from a bell-like voice that rang through the forest. The face in the mirror looked frustrated, then resigned. "You had better deal with that," he said. "I'll talk to your bird while you do."
The bird hopped down onto the horse's rump and stuck her head into the bag. Muted mumbling came from it.
"Siegfwied!" A crystalline horn shoved the undergrowth aside, and to Siegfried's dismay, though not his surprise, the unicorn leapt through the gap. "Heah I am!"
Oh, no —
"Luna, we're going into danger," he said, as gently as he could. "We don — "
"I know!" said the unicorn, stamping one hoof impatiently in the dead leaves. "I aweady know that! I'm coming wif you!"
Siegfried's mouth opened and closed several times without being able to get a word out. This was going to be dangerous...and Luna was such a delicate little thing. She would probably be more hindrance than help, but how to tell her to go without crushing her? Leopold said it for him.
"Uh, pardon, unicorn — "
"Luna," said the unicorn.
Leopold flushed, and tried to find the same words that Siegfried had been unable to muster. "Luna then — you don't — I mean, it's very sweet that you want to help, but I don't know how you could — we're going to be fi — "
It seemed that being interrupted was the order of the day. Leopold's words stuck in his throat, as Luna reared up, lashed the air a fraction of an inch from his left ear with her fore hooves, pivoted before he could wince away, sent her rear hooves flying through the air a hairbreadth above his right shoulder and pivoted a second time to drive her horn deep into the trunk of a tree just under his right arm. She wrenched it loose with a splintering and creaking of wood, then stood back from him, lashing her tail triumphantly.
It was Leopold's turn to stare with his eyes gone round and his mouth open, and Siegfried was in almost as much shock.
Siegfried cleared his throat carefully.
But Luna wasn't done yet. Still swishing her tail, she trotted down to the little pond they had all been drinking from. She knelt beside it and dipped her horn in the water.
Something like softened lightning laced across the surface of the pond as the tip of her horn touched the water. When she stood up, the water, which had been a little murky and green with algae, was now crystal clear.
"Dwink fwom that," she said imperiously.
Without hesitation, Siegfried, the horses and the bear all did. Leopold waited a moment, then, when Luna's eye flashed angrily at his hesitation, he gulped and joined them.
The moment that the first sweet drop slipped down Siegfried's throat, he started to feel energized. By the time he had finished drinking his fill, all his energy had been restored, and more energy heaped atop that. He had never felt so good in his life. Looking at the others, he could see that they felt the same.
"I will do that each time we stop," Luna said with a toss of her horn. "I can heal you. I can make you feel good. I can fight! You can't do wifout me."
"You are right, Luna." Siegfried caressed her neck, and her eyes softened with infatuation. "We need you. But it's very dangerous — "
"I know," she said again. "I know. You think I don't but I do! Wosamund is in the hands of the Huntsman. He has murdered many of my bwovvers and was twying to murder me. I am coming because I wove you. I am coming because Wosamund needs us. But I am also coming for me. For my own weason." Her eyes flashed silver. "I am coming for wevenge."
Somehow, even with her lisp, she did not sound ridiculous anymore.
Chapter 20
The second-floor room of the sorcerer's stone tower was, for the moment, still. As Rosa had guessed, Desmond was what Godmother Lily had called a "ritualist." He probably didn't have more than a few simple things memorized, and he managed all of his magic by repeating, with painful exactitude, what he had written out in his "grimoire," or spell-book. Everything in this tower room — at least, everything that she could actually see — had been carefully positioned. There was a long, waist-high cabinet behind him; on it were a candlestick and his sword, which he had spent some time positioning.
He had taken various things from the drawers with each spell, and put them back when he was done. To her right was the hole in the floor that gave access to the staircase. To her far right was another cabinet with another candlestick. To her left, the same. Circles had been inlaid in the stone of the floor, and symbols inlaid inside the circles. As he had worked, he had walked around her, chanted, burned various incenses and done things behind her that, from the sounds that she had heard, she was rather glad she hadn't been able to see. He had almost certainly killed several small animals after torturing them. It all turned her stomach. At least she had found out all this before he had won the contest. She was almost certain that he would, indeed, have won. If he hadn't done so legitimately, he'd have found a way....
Then again, this was probably the way that he had found.