She checked the direction of the sun through the canopy of leaves, and set off in what she guessed was the right direction, which was downhill. They reached the river, and walked upstream alongside it – there was no need to go all the way down to it, just keep it on their left. Then uphill towards the clear, bare rock beyond the forest.

The ground bent upwards, and the trees began to sprout from between weathered boulders and moss-covered outcrops of stone. Soon the river was below them, rumbling away between the walls of the deepening gorge. The wolf howled again, plaintive and symbolic in a land devoid of human habitation, a wilderness made more wild by desolation.

The vegetation stopped abruptly at a steep ledge. Above it, there was no cover, nothing to mask her from view. She was, of course, still wearing orange.

Down’s gifts only seemed to run to buildings, not clothing. She almost turned back then, realising what a stupid thing she was doing, and that any half-blind idiot would be able to spot her, the only splash of colour pinned to a mountainside. Then again, if she could draw down darkness and make fog, could she camouflage herself with what she had around her?

There was only one way to find out. She stooped down and collected a double-handful of dry, brittle leaves, all browns and dark reds. She knew what she wanted, and she could see it in her mind.

A cloak like Crows’, not black and ragged, but the colours of nature, muted and ending beyond the edges of the cloth so that it looked like a storm of leaves, continually moving and changing.

She threw the leaves she held up in the air, and let them fall around her. She scooped up more and cast them backwards over her.

And when she straightened, it was done. She was wearing a shifting mirage of browns and greens and reds which trailed out behind her and flowed over her arms. She brought her hands together, and the folds of the cloak closed over her orange boilersuit, concealing it beneath the fluttering, rustling cloth.

It wasn’t her, and was still part of her. Like the hem which had no definite beginning or end, neither did she now. No longer isolated and self-contained, she was growing into the landscape as it was growing into her. Let the wolfman and his gang find her now.

‘You should go more slowly,’ said Crows, puffing up behind her.

‘We’re not going to get there if we don’t get a move on.’ She gazed up at the steep slope, and tried to work out her route.

‘That is not what I meant.’ He too tilted his head back, scanning the sky. ‘You know how dangerous magic is. If you do not control it, it will control you. I have seen the results and they are not good.’

‘I can handle it, okay?’