There’d been a man, too, with skin as black as a crow’s coat. He’d helped her, or had pretended to do so, and then he’d stolen from her that which he considered most precious.

The door. The fire. The stepping into the surging sea. The cold saltwater washing around hot burns.

Mary. Her name was Mary.

This was Down’s doing, then. The wish first, followed by the act. That was the art of magic, and the danger of it too, because it could so easily destroy her: the transformation of her from human to avian almost had her lost in the now of flight, of hunting, of seeking. That was what Crows had warned her of, too much, too soon.

Where would Crows be now? He’d be making his way downriver, towards the place he called a portal. With that, the unbidden urge to stretch her wings again launched her into the air, flapping quickly to gain height, climbing over the growing wall and heading south.

The land was in darkness, and still she could see. There was the lake she’d swum in, half a day’s walk she could now make in a fraction of the time, there was the river, flowing out to sea, the broad, braided delta with its shallows and bars, there was the bay, curving like horns, where the waves tore in and broke themselves on the sloping shingle beach.

And there, there was the long ridge, looking like the spine of the world, except that when it reached the coast, its back was broken and beyond the cliff was a line of broken rubble extending as far out as a stack of rock, surrounded by the ever-moving sea.

She flew towards it, and a thin sickle of a moon had started to rise when she had proper sight of it, still miles away in the distance. Below her, the forest stretched out, and the river shone silver. There was movement there, and her sharp eyes picked out dark figures moving through the scrub and reeds.

Yes, there were wolves, but they were not all wolves. Two wolves, six men, in a ragged line, from the main, broad channel of the river to the edge of the forest. If any of them had looked up, they would have seen nothing. She was far above them, and travelling silently.

She circled them as they made their sweep towards the sea. They were looking for someone, someones, but didn’t have a scent yet. Perhaps there were more survivors coming through the portal, and the wolfman had been sent to collect them in the same way he’d come for her group.

Or perhaps they were looking for Crows. She thought she’d find him first, and depending on what he had to say, she might tell him he was being hunted.