Like ghosts, like great, soaring spirits they moved across the sky, spread out in file behind their leader, long-necked, broad-winged, white as the crest of a wave, their wings beating in solemn rhythm. They circled the courtyard where we stood, and the eyes of the crowd followed their flight. One, two, three, four, five. Finbar had always been the last to come.

Come down. Come down to me. They circled again, and I saw Richard reaching for the torch. Then down they glided to land on the platform close by me. They huddled together, eyes wild with confusion, webbed feet padding up and down on the rough boards.

Now, Sorcha. Do it now.

No time to ask questions. No time to gaze up into the darkening sky for another. I reached into the basket, grasped a shirt, flung it over the arching neck of the first great bird. The crowd muttered and whispered.

Quickly, Sorcha. Where was he, where was Finbar? Out over the water still? Left behind, too weak to fly so far? Where was he? I drew out the next shirt, and the next.

“What evil sorcery is this?” Richard’s voice was a snarl, and I heard the torch rasp from its socket as he gripped it in his hand. “What familiars does she call to her aid? All must burn! All!” And he touched the fire to the bottommost layer, where twigs of birch and willow twisted between the ash logs. There was a little crackling, and a flare of light. The crowd gasped as one.

The fourth shirt. The fifth. And I held the last shirt in my hands, the very last, which had but one sleeve, and was stained with dirt and blood and tears. Quickly, Finbar. Quickly.

The swans shuffled in an awkward group, stretching their long vulnerable necks to the sky. The shirts of starwort hung loosely about their great white bodies. Now, Finbar! My eyes went here and there, scanning the sky, scanning the crowd. I would not look down, down beneath my feet where the fire glowed, and spread, running up the length of one twig and another, fanned by the capricious breeze. I felt the heat on my feet and legs, the draft from the fire stirring my skirts. It was not quite pain; not yet. The swans edged away, the flames reflected ever stronger in their frightened eyes. The sky was dark; I could see no birds there. At the back of the crowd, people were jostling and exclaiming. I looked that way. Looked straight into a pair of eyes the color of shadows on ice; into a face I had seen in my dreams these many nights since. He was haggard with exhaustion, his face wild with terror and fury. He had a long, fresh scar on his left cheek, and bruises around his eye. He was elbowing his way fiercely through the crowd, heedless of whom he thrust aside. Behind him, two other men, one with flaxen hair, and the emblem of Harrowfield on his tunic. The second, young, tall, and well built. A man with hair like a field of barley in the summer sun, and eyes of periwinkle blue.