“It is the Pantheon,” Egdod told her. “That is the name that came to the mind of Speaksall. You will have noticed that it is in the nature of some souls to develop greater powers than is common. You for example have made for yourself a form unlike that of any other. I will wager that other souls in Town, gazing upon your beauty, have tried to alter themselves after your fashion but have failed to achieve it. They might lack sufficient control over their own forms. More likely they do not have your wits. The perfection of your form belies the long toil that must have gone into its devising; which indeed is part of its artfulness. For how many seasons did you work at making yourself thus, perhaps hidden away in some house where no other soul could observe what you were doing? In that time you might have asked yourself what was the point of so much striving. But I say to you now that in doing so you were setting yourself apart from these others who did not think to strive in such a way; or if they did, lacked the will or the wit to go on. That is why your place is at my table and not down here among these. For here in Town you will ever be the one who perches on the roof.”

Warm Wings made no answer, but listened with utmost care.

Egdod went on: “I see that you understand my words and know well of what I speak. Souls such as you are required in my Pantheon for a reason that is simple to explain: you see things to which I am blind and in various other ways exceed me. Come to the Palace with me, Warm Wings.” And she did.

The coldness of the winter compelled the souls of Town to adopt new ways. Some few who had the power to wreak great alterations in their forms covered their skin with feathers or hair to keep the cold out. Among others, the crafts of Knotweave spread, and souls made blankets, then garments of such rude fabric as could be fashioned from the fibers of fallen leaves and dead grass. That the same things could also be burned to make warmth they learned from Thingor, who, the better to work metal, had grown adept at making fire.