From the balcony Liska could see the whole of Arborven stretched out beneath her dangling feet. In the winter, when the leaves were bare, it looked like a firepit stuffed full of kindling. In the spring, when mists covered the trees, it reminded her of a witch’s bubbling cauldron. Today, in its clothes of summer green, the city could have been a giant dish of salad, artfully arranged in circles of slightly different colours.

She watched as a trio of shapewalkers strode out on to one of the launching platforms below. They whipped their hoods on and folded into their manticore shapes, becoming three snarling lions with sweeping wings. One by one they launched themselves into the valley below, then soared up and over the mountains, roaring as they went. The final one spotted Liska watching and tossed its mane in the evening sunlight. Somehow manticores managed to add a bit of arrogance into everything they did.

It made Liska feel even worse about her clumsiness. I didn’t mean to fly into the treekeeper, she thought. It’s not something I would do on purpose. I was only trying to listen to that arbomancer and what he was saying. And then that hunter lady spotted me . . .

Even after all the yelling, Liska had the sense that the mage’s argument with Edda the Ancient had been important. Could he really have been suggesting an experiment with the energy of Bitterblight, the shadow tree? Wouldn’t that be a serious threat to them all? And weren’t shapewalkers supposed to guard the city from threats?

But nobody had wanted to listen to her side of the story. Forget about protecting Arborven . . . No, all the shouting had been about the embarrassment she had caused. The shame upon the griffyx families. How the manticores downstairs would never let them forget about it.

Liska sighed, adding a small cloud of steam to the wisps of mist that always seemed to drift past the Noon Fort.

From behind her, she heard the chamber door open. Her mother’s footsteps as she walked into the room. And her father’s. And her sister’s.

Uh oh.

‘Liska. We need to talk to you.’

She turned to see her family standing with their arms folded, faces stern. All except Ylva, her sister, who looked as though she were about to laugh herself to death. This was not going to be good.

‘There’s been a meeting of the Noon Fort elders,’ said her mother. ‘They have decided there need to be consequences for what you did. Your flight and combat training are going . . . as well as can be expected. But your behaviour at the Undrentree . . . Well, you obviously need to understand more about . . . certain things.’

‘What things?’ Liska understood how to change her shape, how to fight and – apart from little accidents – how to fly. What else was there to know?