I hadn’t read the stories in years, but I’d heard them all. Some of the best memories I had of my mother came from when she’d tell me stories about the Saints and the ancient Sellas whose magic gave birth to the crows, according to legend.

“Myths are rooted in history and culture,” Caylus said. “They may be distorted retellings of fact.”

“Or entirely made up,” I said.

“Or entirely made up,” he agreed, dropping into his desk chair and pulling the kitten from his shoulder. He set it in his lap, where it curled up. “I’m desperate. People here don’t have much on record about crows or the Sellas.”

The stories said Sella magic had once blanketed the land, but humans did something to anger the Sellas. So they left, taking their magic with them. The religion around them was nearly extinct now, to the point that most people thought they’d never existed, that the stories were just that. Hardly anyone spoke the old language anymore, and there weren’t many copies of the book left.

I opened to a page with a drawing of the Wandering Wood, a beautiful forest of massive, colorful trees that looked like someone had spilled a bundle of dyes across their leaves. Pale spring green melded into buttery yellows and robin’s egg blues. There were even trees the bright pink of sunrise and the deep mauve of dusk.

The story said the Wandering Wood was an ancient well of magic that only appeared on the full moon. During that time, it allowed the chosen to come and go as they pleased, but you had to be out of the wood by sunrise, or else you’d be trapped until the next full moon.

Right now, that didn’t sound half bad.

Caylus set his cup on the desk. “You would have known the crows well, right?”

His question plucked at a heartstring, sending a quiver through my chest. “Yes.”

His eyes lit up, and for the first time, he met my gaze fully and unwaveringly. “Can you tell me about them?”

For half a second, I remembered Ericen asking me the very same question and the way my entire being had revolted against the idea. But with Caylus, the curiosity in his eyes, the light—it made my heart beat faster and my stomach turn in anticipation, an echo of the feeling that engulfed me moments before a flight. To my surprise, I wanted to tell him.

I leaned against the workbench. “What do you want to know?”

“Everything.”