Sooli was trying to weave with hands she could not see. She was trying to weave Pummel’s freedom and the great Bayam’s memory. She was trying to weave death for the Harshman and life for herself.

But she could not feel her hands either, not since the chicken’s brief escape, and the threads slipped through her fingers like water and ran away from her.

‘What sort of Bayam am I?’ she whispered in the language of Saaf. ‘I cannot save anyone, not even myself. I might as well give up and fall aslee—’

Something twitched deep inside her.

Sooli almost ignored it. She was too frightened to worry about twitches. And besides, it was probably just hunger pangs.

But a good Bayam was supposed to notice everything, including the thoughts that flitted through her own mind. Sometimes those thoughts were just an annoyance, but they could also bring answers. And the quietest thoughts, the ones that came and went as swiftly as a dragonfly, were often the most valuable.

So Sooli put aside her fears and tried to hunt down that twitch. I was thinking that I could not save myself or anyone else. I was calling myself useless. I was thinking that I might as well just fall asleep and—

There! There it was again. Something to do with falling asleep. Something …

‘Duckling,’ she said urgently. ‘How did you know about the Fire Wind? When we were in the salt mine. How did you know its name?’

‘I kept having weird dreams,’ said Duckling, without opening her eyes. ‘Sometimes the chicken was in them and sometimes it was the old Bayam, only I didn’t realise it was the same person. She was trying to teach me about the winds, but I thought it was only a dream, so I didn’t take any notice. Then one night I listened to her …’

‘So if you could sleep now—’ began Sooli.

‘You might be able to talk to the chicken,’ interrupted Otte. ‘You could tell her who she is. You could ask her how to stop the Harshman!’

Duckling opened her eyes and sat up straight. ‘But I can’t sleep. I’ve been trying, and I can’t.’

‘I can make you sleep,’ said Sooli. Then she remembered her hands and said, ‘At least, I think I can. It was one of the first weavings I learned, and it is not hard, not if the person wants to sleep.’

‘Do it,’ said Duckling. ‘Right now.’ And she lay down again.

Sooli tucked the chicken firmly between her knees and set to work. But she immediately came up against an obstacle. The memory of the weaving was in her hands, not her head. It was her fingers that knew the pattern.

But her fingers might as well not have been there. They had gone too far into the world of ghosts, and she could not find them.

So Sooli pretended she was eight winters old again, sitting in front of her great-grandmother’s hearth, learning the pattern for the first time. She imagined the old woman leaning towards her with that worried smile that Sooli loved so much.

She imagined her great-grandmother’s voice. ‘A sleep weaving is not difficult, but it must be precise. If you weave it too tightly, the person might not wake up for days. Too loosely, and they might not sleep for weeks.’

The old woman’s fingers began to move, and Sooli’s invisible hands moved with them.

At first, Otte watched her closely, and so did the mice and the cat. But slowly their eyes closed, and their faces loosened. Otte slumped down next to Duckling with his mice curled around his ears. The cat’s head sank onto her paws, and she began to snore softly.

The chicken tucked her head deep into her chest feathers.

Duckling sighed … and slept.