[color=gray][quote=@c3p-0h]Her smile grew and she gave a little shake of her head – bad move as the dizziness came back – and went back to searching the ground. Her eyes lit up when she found what she was looking for. The sparkling silver bell, still tied to a leafy twig. Meryn picked it up, careful not to get any blood on it, and held it up to the light.[/quote][/color]

The little silver bell glinted merrily in the sunlight. There was something etched into the shining surface, thin and perfect: a tiny rune in the same style as the one in the tree. On the opposite side of the bell, in the same careful, etched script, was a name.

[center][img]http://i.imgur.com/p5Y91lf.jpg[/img]
[color=silver][sup]Oliver Locke[/sup][/color][/center]

The bell was cool to the touch, and it never warmed to her fingers, nor would its perfect shine be smeared or stained.

All of the bells -- the multitude of shining spots throughout the thicket -- had the same rune etched in them, but each had a different name.

[color=gray][quote=@hoppiholla391]As reluctant as she was to disturb the little thing, Lily glanced over to where she'd set down her cage. "Seems a shame to cage them," she muttered, then turned back to Scarlett. "Wouldn't happen to  have any iron bracelets on you? It'd tickle me pink to have one of these things on a leash."[/quote][/color]

In the distance, Fiammetta's shouts echoed on the trees. Somewhere below, a chorus of bagged and caged felidrakes were screeching and yowling as they struggled to get free.

The temple statues began to whistle again.

Each whistled at a different pitch depending on the statue's height -- together they whistled in harmony, a sweet and hopeful chord that almost made up for the angry sounds in the thicket below.

The felidrake in Lily's care lifted its head suddenly, ears perked in alarm. Its big blue eyes stared wide at the empty air, tracking something that moved invisible to the two women.

The creature suddenly went still, and it disappeared with a soft [i]poof[/i].  It reappeared instantly at Lily's feet, and with its ears and wings flattened it slunk quickly away into a hole in the side of one of the whistling statues.

The hollow inside the statue -- where the felidrake crouched wide-eyed, staring at the opening -- was littered with small toys: a wooden monkey that flipped and spun when its arms were pulled; a fat wooden hippo with a hinged mouth and a belly full of coins; a small collection of ornate and ordinary feathers, tied together with string; and a thick, tarnished eyepiece, like the lens from a telescope.

[hr]

Spook sat back on his heels, surveyed his work, and carefully put the bottle and brush away in his rucksack.

The paint dried quickly. In a clearing at the middle of the weedy flagstone road, there was now a magic circle. There were no words and no runes -- just a beautifully complicated pattern of circles, triangles, moons and stars, perfectly symmetrical and unbroken.

[b]"That'll do it,"[/b] he sighed with the voice of a pleased grin behind his mask. But there weren't nearly as many felidrakes collected here as he'd expected. He folded his arms, contemplating the occupied cages -- then turned around to watch in mild interest as the cityfolk did their best.