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There was an appalled silence. Into what league of incapacity and peril had Ivy been thrown?

Chapter 2. Humfrey’s Horror
    “I ’ll have to go to the Good Magician for advice,” Irene decided. “He must be home by now; I can reach him in half an hour. That will be faster and better than casting aimlessly about the wilderness. The rest of you can do that.”
    Her husband looked at her with a certain familiar resignation. He knew she would do things her own way, regardless of his preference, so he didn’t set himself up for embarrassment by opposing her openly. It did not seem to occur to him that her way was best; men were not very practical in some respects. “I will organize a search party here, to range farther into the local jungle,” Dor said. “Ivy can’t be far away.” He did not seem unduly concerned, but that was just his way; Irene knew he would leave hardly any local stone unturned.
    “You’ll probably find her before I get back,” she said, though she had a sick premonition that this would not be the case. That vision had been no passing fancy; it had hinted at a terrible ordeal and danger as yet unglimpsed. She gave Dor a quick, distracted kiss, then turned to the more important business.
    She brought out one of the seeds she had planned to use to entertain the twins. Now she had a better use for it. This was a bird-of-paradise plant seed. “Grow,” she commanded as she flipped it into the air.
    The seed obeyed with alacrity. Irene had always been able to make plants grow, so that in minutes one of them would complete a life cycle that would normally have taken months or years. When Irene had been a child, the Elders of Xanth had judged her magic talent to be excellent but beneath Magician level, to her frustration. Her mother Iris had been privately furious, suspecting sexual discrimination; but the fact was that her talent was not as versatile as those of her parents. During the crisis of the Nextwave invasion of Mundanes, five years ago, when Kings of Xanth had been falling like Mundane dominoes, Arnolde Centaur had assumed the throne and decreed Irene’s talent to be Magician level. Her mother had not been partial to centaurs before then; her attitude had suffered a remarkable change. Since that time, as if in response to that promotion, Irene’s talenthad intensified, so that now she could grow in seconds what had required minutes before. She had become, indeed, a full Magician. Perhaps it was the result of the birth of her unusually talented child. Ivy caused the qualities of those near her to intensify, and this applied to both physical and magical aspects. Irene had always been nearest her child, and yes, the enhancement of her talent had manifested during her pregnancy. Funny she should realize this just now, when her daughter was lost.
    Her comprehensive chain of thought was compressed into a very brief span because the seed was sprouting in the air at the same time, sending out tendrils that radiated large, smooth, flat, oval leaves that became wings that flapped and supported the swelling mass of the body before it fell to the ground. Another shoot became the ornate tail of the bird, and another the head, which was actually a phenomenal flower with lovely petals spreading delicately.
    “More,” she said, and the plant renewed its effort and increased its growth, becoming much larger than it would ever naturally have been. In moments it had a wingleaf span of twice Irene’s height and a massive if convoluted twisted-stem body. Brown roots became legs and feet and claws. The downdraft of its beating wings flattened the grass beneath and stirred up a cloud of dust. The bird-of-paradise plant was ready to fly.
    The zombies were watching with dull interest, never before having seen this type of magic. Perhaps they wondered why only one seed grew, instead of all the plants in range of the sound of her voice. The answer was that it was more than her voice that did it; it was her