If the Elementals weren’t going to help her, she would have to help herself. Storm looked for a spot to practise the flute the Air-witch had given her. An enormous yew tree stood beside the lake. Its lower branches bent low and swept the ground, forming a green tent.

Storm pushed through into a hidden chamber circling the tree’s trunk. She settled cross-legged on the thick brown carpet of shed needles and drew the flute from its case. She was eager to try tiny, precise magic. Remembering the Air-witch’s trick with the paper whirligigs, she put the flute to her lips and began to blow.

Soon Storm found that it was only in those moments when she could stop worrying – about the Fire-witch, about Scoundrel, about Talon – that her Air-magic was completely under control. After many failed attempts, she managed a new level of concentration and suddenly the needles rose from the ground one by one as though strung like beads upon an invisible string. They played follow-my-leader, circling in a slow fairy dance around her head, up to the ceiling of thick brown-red branches and back down. Storm watched them in delight and the flute warbled sweetly. Gentle magic! She had done it at last!

Then a movement somewhere above her in the tree made her think of Scoundrel. A blast of wind sent the tree’s branches flapping, and the dancing needles flew away in all directions.

“Ancestors!” Storm muttered and looked up, trying to quell hope but not quite succeeding. It must have been a bird; there was no sign of the cling-monkey. She sighed, brushed needles from her hair and put away the flute.

She ought to practise some more, but suddenly her heart wasn’t in it.

You may need all your magic soon, warned her mind-voice. The Salamander has not finished with you.

Storm frowned, rubbed her nose. Later. She would go and sit beside the pond again, and watch the white carp circle. The loss of Dain was sharp today.

Storm crawled out from beneath the sweeping branches of the yew, stood straight and stretched, unbending her spine. Head back she saw, lodged high in the branches of the tree above her, the shaft of an arrow.

Her heart lurched. She dropped to the ground, wormed back beneath the tree. Heart pounding, she crouched, waiting for an unknown enemy to attack again. Many breaths she waited, fear dry in her throat. Nothing happened. The garden birds sang. Squirrels chased each other across the sun-patches between the trees. At last, Storm made herself accept the fact that there would not be another arrow-shot.