He didn’t move. He lay just as he was placed, flopped, boneless, lifeless, amongst the shale rocks at the water’s edge. She might have killed him, but the blame wouldn’t be hers. He was the one who’d thrown himself backwards over the edge of a cliff, knowing that only one of them could fly. It wasn’t like he’d discussed his plans with her beforehand: if he’d died, it would have been only because she hadn’t quite managed to save him, and with the smallest chance of success at that. He’d known the risks – or at least, decided that using the storm to get rid of Stanislav took priority over his own life.

She turned her head left and right, examining him. Then she reached down and nudged him with her beak. It wasn’t the most sensitive of tools, designed for ripping and tearing: her tongue – what was she supposed to do, tell how he was by licking him? She could smell nothing off him but stale sweat and fear, and he looked … dead.

She changed back. Where had the dress gone? Where did it reappear from? No matter, for she now had hands to wrestle it back under control as the storm crackled its last above her.

‘Dalip? Dalip?’

The tower was properly alight now, burning brightly enough to cast shadows. She felt anxious, but she could only deal with one thing at a time.

She pressed her hand against his cheek. He felt cool, but not cold; that wasn’t a definitive sign of either life or death. She knew there was such a thing as a pulse, but not how to confidently feel for it. His heart was in his chest: she gathered her hair to one side and awkwardly knelt down next to him, pressing her ear to him.

It took her a moment – longer than that, because she held her breath until she struggled to contain it. There was the faint, rhythmic, welcome thud of valves opening and closing. All well and good, but she couldn’t carry him to shelter, out of the wind and the noise.

‘Dalip, you fucking idiot. Wake up.’

She’d seen how it was done on the telly. Her first slap was pathetic, weak and tentative. Her second was barely better, but she didn’t want to be out there all night, so she gave enough to make her palm sting.

His eyes opened, and he caught her wrist before she could backhand him too.

‘You hit me.’

‘You pulled me backwards off a fucking mountain.’

He blinked. ‘Did it work?’

‘How the fuck should I know? If I go back up there to check, I’m going to get fried by the storm too, right?’

Dalip screwed his face up. ‘Everything hurts.’

‘The tower’s on fire. I don’t know what that means.’

‘The geomancer?’

‘I don’t know! This isn’t exactly flying weather, is it?’