“Where did you come from?”
He started to preen his chest feathers.The forest, he said vaguely.
I picked up the little scrap of fabric that he had dropped and laughed. It was that little piece of embroidered silk I had thrown out the window—the sort-of map that I had imbued with all my desperate wishes. I had hoped it would bring someone to me, but I hadn’t imagined that someone would be a bird. I supposed the metallic thread had appealed to him.
Can I keep it?he said.
“I suppose so. It served its purpose, in a way.” I laid the scrap down on the sill, and he clasped it again with one scaly foot. “What is your name?”
This puzzled him, and he was silent for a while. Finally, he said,We do not have names as you do.
“Can I give you one?” It seemed very important that he have a name. Names have a kind of magic. Without one, he was just a raven. With one, he was a person, albeit a feathery one.
You can call me what you like, he said, and flew off with the little piece of embroidery again.
And so finally I had a friend, of sorts. He never did tell me much about his life before coming to me, but I was so grateful to have someone other than Mother to speak to that I didn’t press him. He seemed fascinated with my Hair and loved to pick at the strands and nibble at it as if searching for bugs. The Hair, in turn, tolerated him. I thought of all sorts of grand possibilities for his name, but, in the end, the sparse gray feathers atop his beak made me call him Baldbeak, and it stuck.
I knew Mother disliked ravens, but not how much. When she first saw Baldbeak come to the window and tap with his beak, she flew into a rage, telling me that ravens were filthy creatures, eaters of death, cunning and untrustworthy. After that, I was very careful to meet with Baldbeak outside, or in the lower room when Mother was absorbed in her work above. I could not give him up. He was the only friend I had.
Chapter Three
The Chalice
‘Not truly a stitch, but a combination of stitches that create a pleasing, goblet-like shape and can be easily replicated to create a border or tessellated pattern.’
—An Exhaustive Compendium of Stitches
Both Holy and Base, 4th Edition
Mother had placed wards and seeing stones around the Tower: minor ones, to keep predators away from our pigeons and insects away from her precious spellbooks; and larger ones, to protect us from thieves, which had clearly been ineffective. Now, however, they were gone. I felt no tingle, no frisson of magic as I stepped beyond the Tower boundaries. Did that mean Mother was dead? I had no way of knowing.
Quell was probably about two days’ walk from the Tower, if I was reading the map aright, which didn’t sound too intimidating. I could follow the River Mirth most of the way. What I would do when I got there, I had no idea, but it was the only clue I had as to where Mother might have been taken—and what did I have in this world without Mother? That was a big and frightening question, and I was happy to put off answering it for a while longer. I supposed I could find a bookseller whomight have known her, or who knew of someone who might desire her great spellbook for themselves and stop at nothing to obtain it, but that was the only real idea I had.
Baldbeak and I followed the little creek that ran along the base of our hill. Here it was barely more than a hundred feet across, and I had spent many afternoons foraging along its banks for duck and goose eggs. In the summer, Mother would let me go outside to collect the feathers that fell from the swans and geese to make her quills. This was one of my favorite times of the year, and I always took longer about it than I strictly needed to, claiming that it took time to select the best ones. I sat on the riverbank to shape the pens, soaking the feather in the river water to soften it and make it easier to remove the lower barbs, then using my little knife to carve the end into a pointed nib and cut the slit ready to hold ink. It had always been a peaceful place for me. Now, however, I could see hoof marks in the mud on the bank where our intruders must have forded it earlier, and it no longer felt safe.
It took several hours of walking alongside the creek, but eventually Baldbeak and I reached the part where it joined the larger river. This was the Mirth, which started in the mountains somewhere as a tinkling spring, then gradually widened as it made its winding path across Virelith, staggering to and fro like a drunkard until it collapsed into the sea at the harbor capital of Mirthwater. Where Baldbeak and I stood now, our mild little creek became a rushing, great bully of a thing, shouldering its way between steep banks that were littered with fallen branches and edged with grimy foam. There was no way to swim across safely and no bridge in sight—but I had to cross it.
“I wish you were large enough to carry me,” I said to Baldbeak. “That would solve all our problems.”
Humans are very poorly designed, he said. As if to taunt me, he flew across the river and perched on a dead tree on the opposite bank, then flew back to my shoulder. I sighed. Well, it was no use just standing there.
I followed the curve of the river, hoping to come to a bridge, but instead found a ramshackle wooden house and a stone jetty with a boat tied to a post at its end. The threatened rain had not yet started to fall, thankfully, but there was a chill to the air. Although it was not yet evening, the light was gray and thin as gruel.
I knocked at the door of the little house. There was an incoherent shout from inside, then the sound of a chair scraping back and boots on a wooden floor. I waited, shivering, until the door opened to reveal a thin man with dirty blond hair and a gold earring. The shock of seeing another new face rendered me silent for a moment, and my eyes must practically have been bugging out of my head. I had seen no men my whole life, and then in just one day I had seen three. It is hard to describe now how utterly bizarre the squareness and hairiness of a man’s face seemed to me then.
The man took me in from toe to tip, visibly unimpressed, and then startled when Baldbeak fluffed out his feathers on my shoulder. Up till that point, the raven had been so still that he could have been a stuffed bird, and I admit I took pleasure in seeing the man take an involuntary step back when Baldbeak clicked his powerful beak.
“Are you the ferryman?” I asked, my voice sounding hoarse and unpracticed. “I need to cross the river.”
“I am,” he said, rubbing the back of his hand violently against his nose.
I closed my eyes in relief, then rummaged in my pockets. “What is your price?”
He watched me as I searched for the little purse of coin and named a price that sounded excessive to me—but then, what did I know of money? I counted the coins into my hand. I had enough, and a few to spare, but I had to find some way to make more on my journey if I was to find food and lodging once I got to Quell. I was aware of the ferryman’s eyes still intent on me as I squirreled the purse away again and held out the coins.
“Traveling alone?” he said.
“Yes. Well, with my raven.” Baldbeak gave a loudraark, making the man jump again.
