She was so close to the sea that when Maria licked her lips she tasted salt. There were different kinds of birds here, gulls and terns that wheeled through the pink-tinged sky. Soon the water she walked through was brackish, and all along the shore small crabs burrowed in the mud. Maria climbed a tree in which to safely rest for the evening, and from that high vantage point she could see blue in the distance, the miraculous sea. There was her future before her.

She already knew that the past was over and done.

She would never again watch another woman burn.

1674 II.

A crow can recall every route it has ever taken, and Cadin had been this way before. Crows are messengers, spies, guides, companions, harbingers of luck, deliverers of trinkets and treasures, tireless in all ways, more loyal than any other man or beast. This one had been connected to his mistress from the time she was a baby in her basket of reeds, which was why he knew her thoughts and wishes and was aware of the destination she wanted most. A familiar is such a creature, an animal or bird that sees inside to the very soul of its human companion, and knows what others might not. What fears there might be, and what joys, for it shares the emotions of its human partner. They were on their way west, to the house where Cadin had found the silver hairpin, which he’d daringly plucked from its owner’s long red hair, though she’d cursed him and thrown stones into the air aimed at him, managing only to graze him. He’d avoided her when she’d come to Devotion Field, bringing her troubles with her, but now he was headed directly toward her. He knew she was a complicated woman, and crows do not judge harshly, unless they have good reason to do so.