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with glittering eyes and bated breath.
    “What news?” asked the Dagda. As if in response, the leaves rustled an echo of his words, like voices heard through a wind.
What news?
    Scaithe swallowed. “We followed the thieves, sire. All the way to Londinium itself.”
    “And? Did you retrieve my property?”
    “Sire, we did not.”
    A wave of unease undulated through the watchers. Scaithe looked around nervously.
    “They had help. A human girlchild. There was nothing we could do. She was too fast.”
    The Dagda leaned forward, revealing a smooth, cruel face.
    “A girl?”
    “Aye. She helped the one who stole the parchment. Corrigan.”
    “What did she look like?” asked the Dagda.
    Scaithe searched his memory. “Black hair. Young.” He shrugged. “I am sorry, sire. It is hard to tell with humans.”
    “Did she look like this?”
    An image appeared in the air before Scaithe, an image of a young, frightened girl standing before a burning building. Even through a coating of soot, Scaithe recognized theslightly rounded features, the large brown eyes, the dark hair.
    “That is her.”
    The Dagda let out a long, slow breath. “The time has finally come,” he said, a look of hunger writ plain across his features. “I think it is time to wake Black Annis and Jenny Greenteeth,” he said softly. “They have been too long from this world, and it is time they finished the task they were given all those moons ago.”

    Jonathan Bridgewater, or “Grubber” to those who knew him, wasn’t important in the grand scheme of things. He was just a boy. He wasn’t going to accomplish great things or change the world. He wasn’t even going to grow up to raise children of his own.
    That’s because he was about to die.
    A low, broken stone wall bordered the section of the Thames River where Grubber waited for the tide to go out. When the water was gone, and all he could see was the thick, evil-smelling mud that made up the bottom of the river, it would be time to get to work. He saw his fellow mud-larks staring over the misty water, waiting just as he did, hoping that today they would make that big find. Maybe a chest fallen overboard from a transport ship all the way from India. Or some silk from China, wrapped in waterproof paper.Something you could sell and make enough money from to live happy for a year.
    He was so busy daydreaming he almost missed the rustle of movement among his fellows. He snapped back to attention and saw that the water had disappeared behind the thickening mist. It was time.
    He made his way down the stairs and stepped gingerly into the cold mud. His bare feet sank up to his ankles. He saw the others around him, indistinct in the mist, vague shadows and shapes that faded from view as each mud-lark took to his own jealously guarded area.
    Grubber pulled a foot from the sucking mud, then placed it carefully in front of him and gingerly prodded the ground. One time he’d stood on an old nail and it had gone right through the skin between his toes. It had become infected and he hadn’t been able to work for two whole weeks.
    He surveyed the dark, glistening mud as he made his way slowly forward. He could hear the water lapping some distance ahead, a quiet, mournful sound, muffled in the mist. Everything else was silent. Even the usual sounds of the mud-larks calling to one another were absent. He looked around uneasily. There was something not right about the day. It was like waking up from a bad dream in the middle of the night. He had that same queasy feeling deep in the pit of his stomach.
    “Hello?” he called. There was no reply, but he shook his head, assuring himself there was nothing to worry about. The others were somewhere close. If he shouted loud enough, they’d come.
    Grubber resumed his search, eyes constantly roving across the mud. He found two brass nails and picked them up, slipping them into his pocket.
    The mud soon became softer, so that he sank halfway to his knees. Before long he