She leaned in closer, chanting. “If you came from the grave hearth, return to the grave hearth. If you came from the River, may floodwaters take you. If you came from hill demons, are of the hill demons, go back to the doorways set into their hills. I call banishment on you from every direction!”

“Graba?” Rownie said, and tried to think of something more to say, something that would make her merely annoyed with him.

Graba’s talon caught him and held him up, squirming by the scruff of his coat. She brought him closer to the flames in her hand. She kept her eyes fixed on Rownie’s face as she chanted. Her chanting voice took on a snarl.

“Semele will not Change you. Her charms will run howling, her words lose their making, her songs lose their binding. What she hides will be found, what she shows will be hidden. She will not take from me. Her works will be scalded.” Fire flared up from her palm. Rownie felt it singe away the fine hairs on his face.

He stopped struggling, closed his eyes, and reached for the crank in Graba’s shin. He popped it out of place and sent it spinning the wrong way around. Springs lost their tension inside Graba’s leg, and she dropped Rownie at the windowsill.

The window was open. Rownie jumped. He didn’t have time to look first. His foot caught on the sill, and it twisted him around. He fell backward, and then down.

Graba threw the burning bird down after him. The greasy fireball stood bright against the sky. Rownie watched it while he fell.

Act I, Scene VI

ROWNIE LANDED IN A SLOPING PILE of dust, and slid down. A dustfish flopped into his hair, flopped out again, and wriggled away to go about its dusty business. Fire, bad-smelling and bird-shaped, smacked against the pile beside him. It smoldered and sizzled there.

Rownie lay still, gasping. He thought very hard about getting up, getting somewhere safely away from the burning bird and away from Graba’s rage. He thought about it, but he did not actually move. The landing had knocked the breath out of him, and he was not yet sure how to get it back.

He looked up, expecting to see another burning bird, or a live and larger bird come to peck his eyes out of his face—or else Graba’s other talon, still wound-up and able to reach through the window and grasp at him. He saw none of these things, so he lay still and tried to figure out if he had broken anything. His arms and legs and head were all sore from the landing, but nothing was bleeding, and none of his bones seemed to have snapped. Rownie experimented with moving his legs and found out that he still could. He slowly got to his feet.