The cover was thick leather, dark and cracked. She opened it carefully, each page inside a waxy parchment filled with giant runes. Sometimes it was clear that more than one hand had written in the book, the writing changing from spidery scrawl to firm, broad strokes and back again. There were many words that Cywen recognized, some from her lessons with her mam, others from her recent teaching with Brina. Teaching me to be an Elemental. Who’d have thought? The idea excited Cywen and she had taken to it well enough. Already she had made a spark appear, on her first attempt only yesterday. Admittedly it had fizzled out almost as soon as it appeared, but Cywen put that down to her own shock at seeing it appear as much as anything else, and Brina had been exceptionally pleased.

‘You see, there is so much to learn before you can really start to put the theory into practice,’ Brina said. ‘Basic commands are simpler – like the one for fire that you tried yesterday. But if you want to shape your commands, exercise some kind of real control – like when we summoned the mist from the river – a mastery of the language is essential. We didn’t just make mist from the river, we directed it across a meadow and up an embankment onto the old giants’ road. That wasn’t easy.’

‘Mist scary,’ Craf croaked mournfully.

He was sitting beside Brina, every now and then his beak darting into the ground and coming back up with a wriggling worm. His wing was healed now, fully recovered from the attack by the hawk, but he was a different bird. He was forlorn all the time, his mischievous comments replaced with melancholy. And he never flew; Cywen saw him often looking nervously to the skies. A ten-night or so after the attack Corban had asked Craf to help in the scouting, but Craf had become a trembling wreck at the mention of it. Corban had obviously felt so sorry for the bird that he had let it go, and not asked again. Now Craf always stayed close to Brina, usually perched on her saddle. He misses Fech. So do I, strangely enough. And I think if I was him I’d be scared too. She had often seen a winged shape riding the currents high above them. It looked suspiciously hawk-like. It would make sense for Nathair and Calidus to track us, so it could well be the hawk that killed Fech.

Brina leaned forward and scratched Craf’s neck.

Farrell appeared and sat down with them, throwing something to Craf as he did so. Something slimy, judging by the noises Craf made as he consumed it.

‘T a s t y ,’ Craf croaked by way of thanks.