Willow looked at Moreg, who seemed unsurprised; in fact, she looked rather pleased – as if it were only natural that she’d been given a strange magical twig to help her become invisible. Willow stuttered her thanks and put the twig inside a small pocket inside her carpetbag, sharing a puzzled look with Oswin as she did.
Ybaer smiled. ‘Come, follow me – we’ll get you matched to a broom.’
Willow blinked and a furl of sudden excitement sprang inside her.
They followed Ybaer and Chopak to a small wooden workshop where several of the new brooms were suspended above the floor of the workshop. He rubbed his beard while he eyed Moreg, a shrewd look on his face. Finally he nodded. ‘Perhaps something modern … something that doesn’t play around? It doesn’t happen often, but, like I said, every now and then you get a broom that is open to a little bit of experimentation. A bit of modification.’
Eyes shining, he raced off to the back of the showroom, coming back with a monster of a broom, a wide grin spreading across his face.
Willow had never seen anything like it: it had a low-slung broom handle, spikes for footrests and on either side was an engine, which roared to life when Chopak pulled a cord from each. Bright orange flames shot out behind as the broom streaked off, doing a thunderous loop around them and making them all duck for safety. It came to a halt right in front of Moreg.
Chopak handed her a pair of flying goggles. ‘I call it “The Business”,’ he said with a wide smile, which to all their shock Moreg returned. She ran a hand along its polished length, saying, ‘Perfection! A broom, but not a broom.’ Her eyes were alight.
There was a hushed silence. After some time he closed his mouth, then turned to Willow. ‘Now, yours … I already know. As soon as I saw you I thought … this is the girl.’
He came forward with a mid-sized broom that glided as light as a feather. Its wood had a silvery sheen and mixed in with the twigs were long white tail feathers. It was simply beautiful. While she stared it seemed to disappear before their eyes, blending in with the surroundings.
‘This,’ said Chopak, leaving the broom to suspend next to Willow’s hip, ‘is Whisper. It’s a very rare Stealth-Racer. This one is most unusual; we found it on Wednesday and no one remembers making it – which is odd as it has these unusual tail feathers. They remind me a little of a cloud dragon’s feathers, but that’s impossible, of course; cloud dragons have been gone from Starfell for years. Go on, give it a whirl.’
Heart pounding, Willow gripped the sleek handle, swung a leg over and sat astride. The broom hovered very slowly off the ground, but when she touched off with her toes it shot up faster than she could blink. She soared high, past the trees, her carpetbag clamped beneath her arm. Oswin’s green eyes peered out as he gasped, ‘Oh no!’
She did a loop, then rejoined the others (and her stomach, which had plummeted to the ground). It was without a doubt the best moment of her life and she couldn’t stop smiling.
But reality came crashing down hard as Willow mentally calculated her spurgles and knew she didn’t have a hope in Starfell of being able to afford Whisper.
But when they asked the price Chopak insisted that the brooms were gifts. ‘We want to aid your quest, so consider it our gift – our way of helping you to rediscover the missing day. Good luck, young Willow,’ he said as she stuttered her thanks.
Despite their better intentions to press on with their journey, it was noon when they finally left Radditch. Not that Willow minded. She’d loved her time with the Mementons – and now, wonder of wonders, she was leaving on her very own broomstick.
The only one who seemed resolutely unimpressed was Oswin, who had found his voice now that they were far away from the Mementons. ‘Go on a journey, she said,’ he muttered darkly. ‘Save the world, she said,’ he harrumphed. ‘She din’t say nuffink about flying on no blooming brooms.’
On the edge of a forest, not very far away, a boy sat by the campfire planning his vengeance against the people who had tried to thwart him. His face was shrouded beneath his hood, his eyes dark as they stared at the flames. His fingers touched the box he had once been imprisoned for possessing.
He was anxious to have it be done with now. To stop with the pretence once and for all.
An old man clamped a hand on his shoulders. ‘We will find them, son,’ he said. ‘And what a glorious triumph it will be.’
‘Yes, Father,’ said the boy, quickly stowing the box out of sight.
The man smiled indulgently, then turned back to the others. He longed to return to the fortress, to his comfortable bed … but the rumours that had reached them – that the witch would finally be breaking the law and might be seized were too good to miss. He picked up his flagon and joined the others in prayer.
He didn’t see the way the boy’s mouth twisted when he’d left. Or the look of revulsion that had marred his features at his father’s touch. He hadn’t seen how the boy’s heart had turned to stone. If he had, he may have suspected what lay inside that dark heart, and how it vowed that the triumph would be his alone …
6
The (Newly) Forbidden City of Beady Hill
One of Willow’s happiest memories was when one of Granny Flossy’s potion experiments went wrong and she ended up making chocolate instead. Willow thought that had been pretty near perfect happiness, until now. Flying Whisper past winding silvery lakes, and through the seemingly endless expanse of cloudless sky, all she could do was smile.
She was partly frozen, her hair had turned into one large knotty helmet that had bird droppings in it from a pigeon who’d used her as target practice, and Oswin hadn’t taken a break from moaning, but she was utterly, blissfully happy.
Well, until a volley of flaming arrows streaked past her broom, almost causing her to fall in her fright. She screamed and clung on to Whisper.
‘They’re just warning arrows. Looks like the king’s army has claimed the air space here … We’ll have to land before the city’s walls,’ said Moreg, racing up to her side. ‘They won’t let us pass over. Better to go on foot, then we can fly on after we’ve found any clues to the forgotten teller’s whereabouts.’
Heart stuttering in fear, Willow followed after Moreg, trying to keep clear of the orange flames that erupted from the Business’s engines.
Willow’s heart was still in her throat. Up on the ramparts she could see the archers with their flaming arrows.
They made way for the outer wall of the city, landing away from prying eyes. ‘They’re a bit sticky when it comes to magic around here,’ explained Moreg, ‘and being on a broomstick will just anger them further. Best to just blend in for now.’
Willow nodded. Though her heart was still racing.
‘I’ll pop the brooms into my pantry for safekeeping – it’ll be better not to advertise who we are to the army.’
Willow agreed, though she kept a hold of the hairy carpetbag with Oswin inside.
As they headed towards the city’s walls there was a distinctive high-pitched panicking noise coming from the bag, which was slightly alarming. ‘Oh no! Oh, me greedy aunt! Osbertrude, why’d yew curse us kobolds?’