As she landed with a bump and rolled out of the net, their million eyes watched her.

She sat up in a vast arena of fluttering and preening.

Swallows and swifts, too nervous to perch, flitted through the twilight. Ducks and geese and ptarmigan sat comfortably on the ground. A peacock spread its gorgeous tail with a rustle. Hummingbirds darted like bright flies.

Seren put her hand down on the forest floor and then pulled it away quickly. ‘OH!’

All the ground was rough with pellets. They were made of tiny clots of crushed bones, teeth and skulls.

‘Yuk,’ Tomos said.

The three owls flew down and landed heavily. The huge Snowy Owl blinked its amber eyes. They were round as coins and fixed on her.

The small cage was delivered by the fourth eagle, and then it was lifted away and the Crow sat there.

It stared out at the parliament of birds.

‘Good heavens,’ it muttered.

But the Eagle Owl was speaking. ‘You! What is your name?’

The Crow cleared its throat. ‘First of all I demand to know under what authority we have been brought here. I demand to know how…’

‘Answer the question!’ The eagle came back and landed beside him. It had an extremely sharp beak.

The Crow was still a moment. Then it snapped, ‘My name is Mordecai Marchmain.’

‘What are you?’

‘I’m sorry…?’

‘What species?’

‘Human, of course.’

A whisper of astonishment and disgust went through the ranks of birds.

‘Then why,’ the owl asked severely, ‘are you falsely wearing the skin and feathers of our brothers? The Corvid family, to be exact.’

It flicked a wing to the left. Seren saw that part of the ruin was black with rooks and crows and ravens and jackdaws and choughs, all of them looking extremely angry.

She didn’t like this at all.

‘They are the ones who have brought this prosecution,’ the owl went on smoothly. ‘And you should be warned that it is a capital charge. You will have a chance to speak for yourself shortly. First, however, the prosecution will call its witnesses.’

The Crow was so astonished it was speechless.

The witnesses were more than ready.

A whole row of starlings whistled eagerly together. ‘We saw this being fly through the sky on wings. Lots of times. Even down a chimney.’

A swallow said sweetly, ‘I certainly heard this being say kek kek.’

A robin hopped forward. ‘I saw this being on very many occasions peck, preen and flutter. Not very expertly, though, I have to say and his feathers are a disgrace.’

A small wren with a very big voice announced, ‘I saw this creature hop on the lawn.’

A dove cooed, ‘I saw this creature scratch itself with its talons.’

The owl nodded. ‘Thank you all. This is very damning evidence. He is clearly pretending to be a bird, though I agree it is a very tatty plumage and an insult to the avian species.’

‘This is totally ridiculous,’ the Crow snapped.