“I require a small party of women and men to accompany me on a Quest and lend a hand in its culmination,” Corvus stated.

“What manner of Quest?”

Corvus seemed not to have considered this seemingly basic question. He pondered it for a few moments, then rearranged his wings in a birdy shrug. “Travel, searching, digging something up. I don’t know. Very important. Leave immediately.”

“May I have breakfast?” she asked.

When Corvus seemed taken aback, she explained: “Others will be there, who might help. And in any case it would never do for one of my family to enter womanhood and embark on a Quest without at least saying a few words.”

Corvus shrugged his wings and said he would wait in the tree. He hopped around to reverse his direction and took to the air with a lot more clattering and whacking than was typical of more experienced birds, and found his way, after some misadventures, back to his old perch. There he bided as various hints and clues emerged from the house: chimney smoke, sounds of dish-utensil collisions, opening and closing of doors and window shutters, and rising and falling murmurs of conversation. The house in some places was made of stones piled atop other stones, in others of wood. In some parts of it the weather was kept out by sheaves of grass cleverly bound together, in others by sheets of gray metal or splits of thin rock. It looked, in other words, as if bits had been added on to other bits over a long span of time without any very clear plan, extending this way and that to enclose little yards such as the one where the apple tree grew. No part of it was especially high or grand, with the possible exception of the one that seemed to be making the greatest amount of smoke and noise during the activity that Prim had denominated “breakfast.” This was a hall with a rectangular plan and a lofty peaked roof, with windows just under the eaves, high enough to admit light and air.

After a while, people came out of it, following Prim, who had tied her hair back and put on more clothes. They were all of the same form. Most were taller than Prim, but a few were tiny and some even had to be carried around by larger ones. They passed through a sort of arch that communicated with the yard and formed up in an arc centered on Corvus.

“Let’s go,” Corvus said, and spread his wings to take flight.

“Just a moment, if you would,” said a man with hair growing out of his face and extending down onto his chest. “We Calladons are no strangers to Quests, and in fact if you were to fly into our Hall over yonder you would see pictures on the walls of our ancestors engaged in some, as recently as a hundred falls ago. So it cannot be said that you have come to the wrong place altogether. But before you make off with our Prim, we would like to know one or two things about just what it is you have in mind. Such as: which direction are you going?”