The wolfman had been in the south, but he hadn’t made it back to the castle by that morning. While he was conceivably on his way, his power over them had been broken at the same time as Bell’s. Having tied his fortunes to the geomancer, he’d find himself adrift soon enough. Mary had seen it before, in the bear-pit of children’s homes. The ringleader would be moved on, and the operation they’d left behind would fall apart in recrimination and violence. New alliances and loyalties might emerge, but it all took time.

Bell had gone. There was no sign of her around the castle, and no sign of her setting off after Crows herself. He’d been her lover, and Mary didn’t know what to make of that. Neither of them seemed the sort of people to show any of the weakness that came with love. Perhaps it had just been a mutual abusing of each other’s power. She’d seen that before too.

Now, it came down to her eyesight against Crows’ cunning. She couldn’t see through the canopy of trees that stretched from the castle to the coast, but she didn’t need to. Crows would – sooner or later – send his flock up into the open air as his eyes and ears, to help him find the most direct route to the White City.

If he didn’t do it today, then he’d do it tomorrow. If not then, some day. She’d wait, and he’d give himself away. She held that it was inevitable that they would find him and catch him.

She dipped a wing, relished the feeling of air tearing by, and watched for movement across the landscape below. The tail-end of the storm blew the crowns of leaves into swaying soldiers, marching over the hills down to the sea, a great curved bay that was itself divided again with headlands and inlets. Lines of waves moved white across the water, and seagulls folded and dove on shoals of fish.

Looking for movement, she found it everywhere. Down was alive: it seethed and boiled with life, but none of it was what she wanted.

The morning passed, and the sun rose high in the south. Something else, too. A darkly luminous disc chasing it across the heavens. It took her more than a moment to realise what it was. It was the moon, huge and hidden against the bright blue and cotton-wool white.

She spiralled down, flying low over the trees until she spotted a flash of orange boilersuit. It was Mama. Then she had to look for a clearing, where last night’s, or last year’s, storm had blown a hole in the dense mat of trees to let the sunlight flood in to the under-storey.

She landed on the fallen trunk, already crumbling under her tightening claws, and transformed herself into a girl in a red dress.