The transformation seemed to take both forever and a mere second. She was falling, then she was flying, time stretching out long enough that she could experience her skin erupting in feathers, the constricting clothes melting away, her hood of hair disappear and all her senses become as sharp as her talons.

She wheeled away from the orange figure fluttering below her.

She remembered again. The raggedy twist of limbs was worth catching, but she’d left it very late. Her wings, hard against the updraught, folded against her body and her neck craned forward. Not so much falling as diving, faster than anything in the sky, able to outrun even the lightning.

Here he came, flailing in the roaring air, closer and closer, and though the lake was topped with white foam fingers that were reaching up to embrace him, she was quicker. Her legs swung down and her claws opened like traps.

They closed around him, a black keratin cage. Now they were both going to strike the water together. She unfurled her wings to their furthest reach, and her dive became an arc. All her flight feathers strained, and her tail spread wide.

Her speed became unfathomable. There was the water, and there was air, and it passed her in a single blur of steel grey. She lifted her legs as high as she could, because she was that close to dragging them, and her precious cargo, through the surf.

And finally, the curve turned upwards. There was a hair’s breadth between her and the rushing ground. Then a hand’s breadth. Then more, but no, here came an obstacle, a wall, Down-made but already ruined by the storm and the vagaries of nature – she soared through the gap and managed to gain enough height to crest the opposite side.

She registered that the top of the tower was on fire, but that was all. Its significance eluded her for a moment, as she dropped down into the valley, speeding up again, standing on one wing to pass through the gorge and up back towards the mountain-top.

Now she slowed, her wings wide as she skipped over the shoulder of rock and into the col behind, down towards the lake shore. She flapped once, twice, to kill her forward movement, then fluttered gently as she lowered Dalip to the ground.