“Then it’s happening,” she whispered. “What Morgan’s feared for so long. But why didn’t he tell me? We’re not ready, and it’s my fault. I can’t keep the transmutations consistent. Every time we use the incant, it warps the syllabics and the magework fails, horribly. And then we have to go back to the beginning and start over, again and again. Oh, why didn’t he tell me? I’d have done more, I’d have tried harder, I—” She squeezed her eyes shut, her face a mask of distress. And then she looked at him, her wide eyes filled with a sudden dawning hope. “Oh! But Remmie, now you’re here. You can help. You might be out of practice after all that stodgy teaching, but you’ll find your feet quickly enough. What a mercy the schoolhouse closed. You’ve got here just in time!”

The flood of words left him feeling battered and dazed. “Barl, what are you—”

She snatched his arm again and started for the mansion, dragging him with her. “You remember the lily?”

How could he forget? The flower was still in the cottage kitchen, air-dried in a jar.

“What does your irregular flower have to do with any of this?”

“Everything,” she said. “I’ll show you.”

In horrified silence, he stared at the chickens huddled in the corner of the coop. Well. The things that used to be chickens. He didn’t know what to call them now. Barl’s mood had lightened, bringing him here. She was talking about the transmutation incant that had altered the birds, changed their feathers to living armour, their stubby beaks to living swords, their harmless scratching chicken feet to wicked, tearing talons. Telling him how difficult it had been to get the sigil and syllables balanced just right, how so many chickens had died before the first one lived and thrived.

If anyone in their right mind could call such a miserable existence thriving.

“Of course,” she added, “they’re not really good for anything. I mean, what we end up with won’t be based on a chicken. Mainly we were trying to perfect the melding of carapace and feather. For protection. You understand?”

No, Barl. None of it.

But he couldn’t trust his voice, so he nodded instead.

“We tried to change the hounds, but that didn’t work at all,” she said, frowning. “So we’re trying something else now, something much closer to what Dorana needs, but it’s not right. Not yet. I’ll show you, Remmie. Only I’ll warn you it’s a bit upsetting. All right?”

No, it wasn’t all right. None of this was all right. She’d kept calling him mad, but he thought she was the one whose reason had flown.

She’s transmuting living creatures. Deforming and killing them by the dozen… and she doesn’t seem to care.