Back To The Divide by Elizabeth Kay

to herself, you can do it.
    "Go on," urged Thornbeak with a lash of her tail. "You can do it."
    Betony tiptoed across the floor. She put the feather in the center of the star, and the ghostly blue haze on the ceiling rippled. Then she took a deep breath and started to recite the countercharm. One of the japegrins mumbled something in his sleep, but he didn't wake. The sun was streaming in through a side window now; she could see the long shadows it was casting on the lawn outside. The rain clouds had gone.
    She was about halfway through the spell when she heard the noise. She dug her nails into the palm of her hand and kept going. Then, out of the corner of her eye, she saw the triple-head fly past the window. She almost hesitated -- in flight, the bird was even more terrifying.
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    Thornbeak muttered under her breath, "Call those beaks? Third-rate nutcrackers."
    Betony suppressed a smile and forced herself to concentrate on what she was reading. Only a few more words to go ...
    And then Ironclaw burst through the door. The draft of air blew the feather across the hall, and Betony lost the thread of what she was saying. She grabbed the feather but it was too late; the blue glow among the rafters intensified, and there was a sudden smell of molasses. The doors slammed shut with a crack like a thunderbolt. The japegrins appeared to wake up with a start, but their eyes wouldn't open.
    Ironclaw looked around him in alarm. "What did I do?" he asked.
    "Messed up the countercharm to the incendiary spell," snapped Thornbeak. "The fire risk has gone, but the doors will be glued shut with super-molasses and so will a lot of other things. The only reason we aren't stuck fast is because we're brazzles, and the only reason Betony isn't is because she picked up my feather. What are you doing here, anyway?"
    "Rescuing you, " mumbled Ironclaw. "Made a bit of a cuddyak's ear of it, didn't I? I suppose I'm a prisoner as well now."
    "Not necessarily," said Thornbeak. "We know of a secret exit. Fleabane won't be able to reinstate the spell for another
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    moon or two -- you can't apply something like that twice in quick succession, it simply won't take. I hope there's a tunnel to the beach that hasn't fallen in, because the penalty for neutralizing the spell is death. Grab that lantern, Betony, we're going to need it."
    It wasn't quite as simple as that, though. The bookcases behind which the exits lay were now glued shut with super-molasses.
    "Bites and stings," swore Thornbeak, "I'm going to have to try and dissolve some of this stuff. It's a risky process, though -- I could get stuck myself."
    "Then let me do it," said Ironclaw gallantly.
    "Excuse me?" said Thornbeak, as though she couldn't believe her ears.
    "I'll do it," said Ironclaw, feeling brave and chivalrous and scared stiff.
    Thornbeak looked worried. "That's what I thought you said. Are you feeling all right?" Ironclaw glared at her.
    They went back to the first bookcase. Ironclaw rubbed his feathers along the crack as Thornbeak recited a quick melting spell. The molasses began to trickle away, forming a little puddle on the floor. The puddle got bigger and changed shape, piling up on itself like candle wax. And then, with a sudden creak, the bookcase slid to one side and a long dark tunnel opened up before them.
    Ironclaw led the way, and Betony followed. But as
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    Thornbeak went to slide the bookcase back into position, she found she couldn't quite close it. The molasses that had solidified on the floor was in the way -- and part of it was now shaped like a paw.
    "I think we've just had a piece of really bad luck," said Thornbeak. "Molasses and sinistroms have always had a strong magical connection. Everyone knows that if you dunk a sinistrom's pebble in a glass of fertle-juice, it turns it into molasses. There must have been a little blob of shadow-molasses lying around somewhere. By changing the composition of all the molasses in the library, I've resurrected a