Galen stopped. Before them was a house, or it had been, once. Now only a few fragments of wall rose among a thicket of elder; red wall, made of mud brick. A single window with a black shutter hung open. Trampling down nettles, Raffi clambered up and looked inside.

The room was a grove of trees. Oaks had splintered it; over the years its outline had faded under ivy, swathes of fungus on rotting wood. Half a chimney still rose up, weeds waving from its top.

A crash made him jump; Galen had forced his way in, through a cloud of seed and gnats.

Raffi followed. ‘Was it ours?’

‘I should think so.’

‘But why the protection spell? There’s nothing here to protect.’

Galen threw him a scornful look. ‘That’s what we’re meant to think. Go and get the pack.’

When he’d dragged it in, he found Galen kneeling at the hearth, brushing earth and worms from flat red bricks that were smashed and broken. The keeper eased his filthy nails in and forced one up; it moved with a strange hoarse gasp.

The earth underneath was smooth. Galen tugged the next stone out.

‘What are you looking for?’

‘Anything. The spell was strong. Something’s here worth guarding.’

‘Relics!’

‘Almost certainly.’ Another tile came out and left a dark gap. Raffi crouched down quickly. He had felt the shock of power, faint but unmistakable. ‘Something’s in there!’

Galen widened the hole, reached in and seemed to scrabble and dig with his fingers. He paused; then pulled his hands out in a shower of soil.

He was holding a small packet, wrapped in layers of waxed cloth. Shuffling back, he turned and laid it on a flat stone, carefully.

‘Is it dangerous?’ he asked, without looking up.

‘I don’t think so.’ Raffi felt inadequate, the old feeling. ‘I don’t really know.’

Galen shot him a glance. Then he unwrapped the packet, his fingers working eagerly. Raffi knew he was taking a chance.

The cloth opened. They saw a small glass ball, and a piece of rough parchment made from some thin bark. This had rotted and, even as Galen opened it, infinitely carefully, pieces flaked off. Then it split, and he hissed with frustration.

The writing was faint, barely a scrawl, and some words had gone. Galen read it out, grimly.

Kelnar, of the Order of keepers. To any others of the Sacred Way who still live and… come this way. The Watch… from the chalk hills. The Archkeeper Tesk died yesterday, they took him. They know I’m here, I have to go to find … I have little time. Understand this. I have seen the Crow. The Crow still lives in the dark places of Tasceron, in the House of Trees, deep underground, guarded with spells. I cannot say…’