She tried to resist. She tried so very hard. But wrestling with her compulsions was harder, and she was exhausted and confused, and in no state to feel strong. She gave in. She almost ran. Back inside, up the steps, past the room she’d entered previously because that too was now enclosed by timbers stretching overhead and boarded out. The steps, where they’d petered out into space now carried on, and so did she.

The tower now had a top, a parapet of stone that was waist-high, and the rafters that would make the roof had already grown out. All that was missing was the floor beneath, and the shingles above. The crows swirled around her, cawing and cackling, but those already roosting merely hopped out of her way as she stepped on the exposed beams on her way to the edge.

She planted her feet, held on to one of the angled uprights, and stared out over Down. From the height she was at, she could see more, even the distant mountain with the twin peaks, which the geomancer ruled and where she’d fought a dragon and at least not lost.

When she leaned out and looked down at the cooking fire, she didn’t feel a visceral turn in her stomach. Rather, she felt the opposite. Elation. Her wings fluttered against the gusting wind, rising of their own accord.

A crow hopped on to the parapet beside her, its head turning to inspect her with one dark eye. The same wind that she felt riffled the purple-black plumage on its back, and it flapped its wings with sudden violence, making the wing-tips snap like whips. It settled, and its pale beak announced a caw.

‘Caw,’ she said back. ‘Caw.’ Her own wings, brown, speckled with white and black, remained mute.

The crow stretched its wings out again, and flapped them hard. It rose into the air, and glided back into place. It looked at her again, its bright eye shining. She could see her reflection, strange and inhuman.

For a third time, the crow flapped and rose, fell and folded.

It was trying to teach her how to fly, and she still didn’t have the muscles or the motive. All she had was wings, that were surely insufficient to carry her aloft.

She stepped up on to the stonework, and spread her arms wide.

She wanted to do it. She wanted to leap out into the sky and not hit the ground. She knew she mustn’t. That it was a dangerous, lethal delusion, brought about by Down’s magic. It was going to kill her if she jumped, because there was no way she’d survive the impact with the unforgiving pavement below.

The crow looked at her, daring her. They were both birds. With a flap of her wings, she’d be away, rising over the darkening land, wheeling and calling with all the others. How simple and straightforward that would be.