The angry faces stared daggers at Liska. This was the point when she should mumble something about making a mistake and put her head down. But Liska was never very good at doing what she should. The thought of it usually made her do just the opposite.

‘I saw one of you talking about it with a treekeeper. Well, shouting, actually. It was a bald man in black robes. An arbo-whatsit, I think. He was saying how he wanted to try and control the forces of Bitterblight himself. I don’t think the treekeeper was too happy.’

‘Ah,’ said Ambrose. ‘Ah, yes. That unfortunate incident.’ His watery gaze turned to the big arbomancer child in the front row. The one who looked like he was about to climb out of his chair and thump Liska very hard. ‘There was some talk about that recently. Fortunately – or unfortunately, perhaps – the mage in question seems to have . . . left the city. Shall we move on?’

No, thought Liska. We definitely shan’t. ‘But what if he’s left the city to do just what he said? What if he’s messing around with Bitterblight right now? Shouldn’t the treekeepers be hunting him down? Shouldn’t he be thrown in a dungeon somewhere?’

At this, the arbomancer boy actually slammed his fist on his desk. The rest of the class gasped.

‘Now, now,’ said Master Ambrose, flapping his wrinkled hands. ‘That’s quite enough. Calm yourself, Odis. The matter has been dealt with and we are getting distracted from my lesson plan. Where were we?’

Ambrose resumed his mumbling about the forces of magic, tree roots and circles of power and gradually all the children turned away from Liska, back to the notebooks and scrolls on their desks. All except Odis, who continued to stare at her from under his mop of black hair for another long minute.

Liska stared back, her fingers idly playing with the fur collar of her cloak. Let him try to do anything to me, she thought. He’ll soon learn not to mess with shapewalkers.

Another, less fierce, part of her mind wondered what his connection to the bald mage might be. Friend? Nephew? Son?

Whatever it was, Liska had a feeling she would soon find out.

*

In the end, it took much less time than she expected.

After they had listened to another hour or two of wittering, they were allowed outside to have a bit of fresh air.

There was a patch of muddy earth next to the classroom, walled in on all sides by other wooden temple buildings. Overhead hung the branches of the Undrentree, like some kind of dappled green sky. Wavering puddles of light seeped through the overlapping leaves. Everything was tinted green, speckled with floating seeds and flitting insects.