It was the night of the autumn equinox, called by common folk the Feast of the Ingathering, the magical start of the season of favourable winnowing winds. For witches and the Older Tribes it was Mabon, one of the year’s eight sabbaths.

“Hey!” the ginger-haired witch suddenly screamed. “Sisters! Confraters! Shall we have some fun?”

Reynevan wasn’t in the mood for fun, all the more so because he had no idea what kind of fun it would be. But the bench was now clearly part of the flock and was doing what the flock did.

The squadron dived down towards the bright blaze of a campfire. Almost catching on the treetops, they flashed, whooping and shrieking, over a clearing and the campfire around which about a dozen men were seated. Reynevan saw them looking upwards and heard faint cries of excitement. Nicolette’s fingernails dug into his flesh again.

The ginger-haired witch displayed the greatest audacity—howling like a she-wolf, she flew down so low that her broom threw up a shower of sparks from the campfire. Then all of them climbed steeply upwards, with the yells of the men by the fire hot on their heels. If they had crossbows, Reynevan shuddered, who knows how the game might have ended.

The skein began to descend towards a mountain rising up from a forest and itself covered in trees. It was definitely not Ślęża, however, contrary to Reynevan’s conjecture. The mountain was too small to be Ślęża.

“That’s Grochowa Mountain,” Nicolette said, surprising him. “Near Frankenstein.”

Campfires were burning on the mountainsides, yellow, resinous flames were shooting up behind the trees, and a red glow was lighting up the magical mist lying in the valleys. Reynevan could hear shouting, singing, the squealing of flutes and pipes and the jangling of a tambourine.

Nicolette trembled at his side, and probably not just from the cold. He wasn’t especially surprised—shivers were also running down his spine and he could barely swallow, for his heart was in his mouth.

A fiery-eyed, dishevelled creature with hair the colour of carrots landed beside them and got off its broom. Its sticklike fingers were armed with curved, six-inch talons. Close by, four gnomes in acorn-shaped caps were drowning each other out with their jabbering. They appeared to have all flown in on a large oar. A creature wearing something like an inside-out sheepskin that might have been its natural fur plodded past, dragging a baker’s shovel behind it. A witch in a snow-white and a very immodestly unbuttoned shirt cast a hostile glance at them.