Heckle fluttered up onto the leaf. ‘We think the Forever Fern is a fingerfern – a very special one. We think it’s your fingerfern, that it grew in honour of you both.’
Fox held her palm up to the frond in front of her and her eyes widened. The silver loops and swirls did indeed match her own fingerprints! And, from the look on her brother’s face beside her, she could tell that he had seen his prints on the frond before him.
‘Wherever you are in the world,’ Deepglint said, ‘a part of you both will always be here in Jungledrop.’
The twins smiled at the thought.
‘Morg cannot find a way back into Jungledrop directly,’ Deepglint went on. ‘Planting the phoenix tear has meant that she is banished from this kingdom for ever. For now, she is trapped underground, but she is not gone for good, so there is a chance that she will find her way into another Unmapped Kingdom. After all, there are more phoenix tears in the Faraway that will be waiting to bring others like both of you to our kingdoms to help us defeat Morg again, should the time come. Then, perhaps, a new phoenix will rise from Everdark and the world will be rid of the harpy for ever.’
Deepglint drew himself up tall. ‘Now, though, the Faraway and the Unmapped Kingdoms are safe and if the thunderberry bushes have bloomed again across Jungledrop, as they have here, then we will have rain scrolls before long. So let us hasten back to Doodler’s Haven to check that the scrolls are ready to be sent on to your world.’
The Lofty Husk looked at Total Shambles and the swiftwing picked his way over the rubble towards them.
‘The Bonelands are rid of Morg’s curses now,’ Deepglint said to the swiftwing, ‘and I thank you for your part in helping Fox and Fibber on their quest. But the animals and Unmappers are weak still and I must lead them home. Can I trust that you will carry our heroes safely back to Timbernook?’
Total Shambles cocked his head at the twins, then he spread his wings before them as if that evening in the bramble tunnel had never happened. Fox and Fibber rushed over to him and, as Fox told the swiftwing how sorry she was for the lies she’d told him, he pressed his head into her chest.
Deepglint glanced at Iggy and Heckle. ‘If there is room on your back for a very small Unmapper and a very talkative parrot, too, then that would, I have no doubt, be greatly appreciated, Total Shambles.’
The swiftwing ruffled his feathers, then swished his tail and, as the twins, Iggy and Heckle climbed up onto the swiftwing’s back, Deepglint dipped his head at them.
‘I will see you at Timbernook,’ he said. ‘It has been an honour to fight by your side.’
Total Shambles wobbled up into the night sky until Deepglint and the other Unmappers were just specks down below. And, though it was night now, the twins could see that Jungledrop was a glow-in-the-dark rainforest brimming with life and colour once again. Trees had regrown, plants had flourished and the kingdom rang with the sound of animals and magical creatures rejoicing in their new-found freedom.
For a while, Fox looked down at the canopy and marvelled at where her adventure had taken her: over rivers and lakes, forests and ravines. But soon she and the others fell asleep, their arms locked round each other’s waists and their bodies nestled in between Total Shambles’ wings, as he flew on beneath the stars.
They knew they had arrived, several hours later, because the swiftwing’s landing was as clumsy as ever and it sent them toppling over Total Shambles’ head into a heap at Goldpaw’s feet. The group stood up by the edge of the lagoon in Doodler’s Haven. Its water glistened in the dawn light and Fox noticed there was a gravestone covered in flowers beneath a candletree. It marked the fall of the Lofty Husk called Spark.
‘You were very much not what I was expecting when you arrived in Jungledrop,’ Goldpaw said to Fox and Fibber with a smile. ‘And yet a message from Deepglint tells me that it is, ultimately, because of you two that the thunderberry bushes have sparked back into life again and Morg has been banished from the kingdom. You achieved what none of us here could and Jungledrop owes you the very greatest debt.’
Fibber nudged his sister with pride. ‘It was mostly Fox. She’s the one who tricked Morg’s Midnights and worked out that the phoenix tear was the pearl all along. She’s the real hero.’
Fox blushed and Goldpaw laughed at the change in the Faraway children. Then she glanced over at the temple in the middle of the lagoon. ‘There is just one more thing,’ the Lofty Husk said, ‘concerning the rain scrolls. And I wondered whether I could call upon Fibber’s help?’
Doodler’s Haven was a bustle of activity compared to when the twins had last seen it. Dashers with bulging satchels were hurrying through the tunnel that led from Timbernook to Doodler’s Haven and rushing inside the Bustling Giant. And, within that huge tree, the twins could hear cauldrons hissing and spitting. Perhaps these were the marvels from Rumblestar that the Dunkers were mixing with the dye from the thunderberries, Fox thought. She listened as a gurgling sound bubbled inside the pipes leading into the waterfall, then torrents of ink, every shade of blue, surged out and cascaded down into the lagoon.
Fibber watched the Doodlers on the temple steps as they dipped little jars into the ink before rushing back to their easels to paint the canvases waiting there.
‘They will be on the back foot,’ Goldpaw explained. ‘The best Doodler in the kingdom – Flavia Flickerpaint – was kidnapped by the Midnights and, though she is on her way back here with Deepglint,
