Aruendiel sat up that night reading everything he could find about the various kinds of enchantments that could be affixed to or expressed in jewelry. He considered it a rather old-fashioned branch of magic, but there was no shortage of spells and commentaries, including many accounts of necklaces, earrings, bracelets, or rings that had been endowed by wizards with specific charms, powers, or curses. Baubles to make the wearer invisible, stronger than a dozen oxen, more beautiful than any other woman alive, uglier than death, or richer than seven kings. Trinkets that conferred eternal youth or a lifetime of pain.
None of the wizards and magicians who had written on the subject mentioned a spell that served only to hold a ring on a person’s finger. Aruendiel did not find this reassuring. Most likely, he thought, the girl Nora’s ring would not leave her finger because it contained a spell that was still somehow hidden. And yet he was familiar enough with the traces of Faitoren magic—powerful stuff, but cloying, much like Ilissa herself—that he should have been able to detect such a spell. All the more galling that he could not remove the ring.
In the morning, while he was still eating breakfast in the great hall, there was a delegation from the village. In addition to the sheep, Raclin had helped himself to a goat and three chickens, and set three thatched roofs on fire. Aruendiel listened as patiently as he could. Without promising to replace the lost livestock, he pledged to repair the burnt roofs and assured everyone that he would increase the valley’s magical defenses immediately.
After they had left, Aruendiel observed to Mrs. Toristel: “If a raiding party came through the village, burned buildings, and stole an equal quantity of livestock, no one would expect me to make them whole. But if an obviously magical creature wreaks havoc here, it automatically becomes my fault.”
“They’re used to your protection, sir,” Mrs. Toristel said. “I’m not saying it isn’t ungrateful of them.”
“Well, no doubt they assume that if not for my presence, we wouldn’t have been blessed with this particular visitor. I suppose they’re right,” he added, with a glance at Nora, who was gathering up the used dishes from the table. “He came only because I decided to harbor his runaway spouse. Come over here,” he called to her. “I want to take another look at that ring.”
But after half a dozen of the most potent spells Aruendiel knew for separating objects or undoing magic, the ring was still fast to her finger, which was now black and blue. The girl herself said little, only bit her lip and blinked hard when he tried the Tulushn fire. (Well, he stopped as soon as he saw it was doing no good, and conjured a bowl of water from the kitchen to soak her hand.) A shame that she hadn’t listened to his advice about not marrying the Faitoren monster in the first place. “You should always be careful about whom you accept jewelry from,” Aruendiel said, as Mr. Toristel came in from the courtyard to say that there was a gentleman to see his lordship.
Nora, who remembered hearing similar advice from her grandmother, felt she was in no position to contend this point with the magician. She took the goblets into the kitchen; then, at Mrs. Toristel’s bidding, she went out to the garden to dig some carrots. As she pulled them up, her eye kept coming back to the ring’s smooth gleam on her now-grubby, still-smarting hand.
Ilissa’s tool? She could not shake a nagging sense of doubt. Despite what she’d told Aruendiel yesterday, would she really know if someone was slipping thoughts into her mind like cuckoo’s eggs? It had happened before, after all.
“But if Ilissa were controlling me,” Nora argued internally, “would I even be wondering about this?”
Back in the kitchen, Mrs. Toristel informed her, snappish and excited, that Aruendiel’s visitor had come from Semr. “That’s the king’s livery. Put those carrots down and take him out some ale. He’ll want it after talking to the master.”
Nora took the pitcher of ale and went out into the great hall, where Aruendiel was speaking with a man in a red-and-gold coat. Mrs. Toristel was more correct than she knew. “But His Serene Highness requires the Lord Aruendiel’s counsel,” the messenger was saying, his voice frankly desperate.
“Then he should have asked for it more civilly,” Aruendiel said. He rolled up the scroll he was holding and placed it on the table. “I will look forward to seeing His Majesty next year, at the Assembly of Lords.”
The messenger licked his lips. “His Majesty will be sadly displeased.”
“Then I am sorry for His Majesty’s ill humor. He is not the first king that I have sadly displeased, however, and perhaps he will not be the last. Will you have some refreshment before you leave? There are some hard-boiled eggs here, and”—Aruendiel turned and caught sight of Nora, holding the pitcher—“yes, my housekeeper has sent out some ale.”
Nora did not move forward with the pitcher. She was staring at the dish of eggs. She had boiled them herself earlier that morning. So why was one of the eggs rocking madly back and forth? She could hear the tap-tap-tap as it knocked against the others.
Aruendiel followed her gaze to the egg. His eyebrows lifted.
As they watched, the shell cracked, then broke in two. Something bright emerged, a tangle of tinsel. A bird the size of a sparrow, fluffing out silver feathers. It took flight over Aruendiel’s head, a glittering streak in the bars of morning sunlight, and then perched on a rafter, throwing a faint radiance onto the smoke-blackened roof beams.
“You brought another message for me,” Aruendiel said to the man in the red-and-gold coat.
“Me? No. I’m no wizard!” said the messenger, blinking.
“That’s very obvious,” said Aruendiel. “But it doesn’t mean you didn’t bring some magic with you.” He pursed his lips and whistled; the bird chirped back.
“What is it saying?” Nora ventured to ask.
“I have no idea. I’m trying to lure it down. Then we’ll find out what this is about.”
The bird spent several minutes preening itself, burnishing its silver feathers. Finally, it flew down to alight on the table in front of Aruendiel. Now Nora noticed a small roll of paper tied to one of the bird’s legs with blue ribbon. Aruendiel’s long fingers pulled on the trailing end of the ribbon to free the paper. He picked it up and read it.
“Well, well,” he said reflectively. “Why didn’t you tell me that the magician Hirizjahkinis is in Semr?” he asked the messenger.
The messenger seemed flustered. “Yes, I believe the Lady Hirizjahkinis is currently a guest of His Majesty.”
“If he has Hirizjahkinis, why does he need me?” Aruendiel inquired, apparently of himself. “But she says I should be there, too. She says that I would want to be there. Merlin’s folly, she could have squeezed another line of explanation onto that paper.” He gave an exasperated sigh and crumpled the paper into a ball. For a moment, he stared into space, considering, and then he turned to the messenger. “All right, your master the king gets his wish. I’m going to Semr—at the invitation of the Lady Hirizjahkinis, not because he ordered me to come.”
“His Majesty will be very pleased.”
With a snort, Aruendiel turned to Nora. “You there, find Mrs. Toristel and tell her that I’m leaving. I’ll start today.” He gave her a hard, rather appraising look that she found unnerving. “And shoo this bird out of here, will you?” The silver bird had found a new perch on the railing of the gallery at the far end of the hall. “Otherwise it’s going to make a disgusting mess. Even magical birds leave their droppings everywhere.”
It was true, Nora saw, glancing at the floor.
• • •
In the end, it took both Nora and the castle tabby to get the silver bird out of the house, although that was precisely not the cat’s intention. It meowed angrily at Nora as the bird flew out the door and disappeared, bright as thought, into the sky.
Carefully Nora uncrumpled the tiny ball of paper that she had retrieved from the floor. A few lines in the undulating, enigmatic Ors script went up and down the page. The first word was easy—Aruendiel. Decoding the words one letter at a time, she laboriously found her way to the end of the note. “I know you’re going to say no to the king, so I’m telling you that you shouldn’t. Trust me, you don’t want to miss the excitement. I will see you in Semr. Soon, please.”
When she went back into the great hall, she found the magician talking to Mrs. Toristel near the kitchen door. There was a leather bag at Aruendiel’s feet, and he had changed his clothes: The rough linen shirt he had worn earlier had been replaced by a fine black wool tunic embroidered with gold thread; his cuffs and collar were freshly crisped into a myriad of minute pleats; and his boots looked almost new. Even his ragged black hair had been trimmed, and now fell in a neat curtain just above his shoulders. Perhaps because of the unusual finery, Nora thought his tall figure looked more angular and crooked than usual.
Mrs. Toristel was shaking her head, her arms folded. “No, sir,” she was saying, most uncharacteristically. “You cannot do that. Not after yesterday.”
“I don’t like to go, but something is up in Semr,” he said with an impatient exhalation. “I’ve put on a new spell of deep protection; the other safeguards are in place.”
“That’s not enough, sir.”
“I’m only going away for a few days at most. Perhaps I should make the valley invisi—”
“That’s all well and good, but that’s not what I mean. What I mean is her.”
Nora realized two things: That Mrs. Toristel was talking about her, Nora, and that her entry into the hall had gone unnoticed. Aruendiel had his back half-turned, and he was blocking Mrs. Toristel’s view. In such a situation, Nora thought, one can be honorable or one can be practical. She stepped discreetly into the shadow of the great door.
“You won’t have to worry about her,” Aruendiel said. “She’ll be safely restrained while I’m away.”
Restrained? What did that mean—transformed into a donkey? Or a geranium? Nora debated whether to make a run for it right now, before Aruendiel or Mrs. Toristel noticed her.
But the housekeeper was shaking her head again. “No, sir, however well she’s hidden, and I know you’d hide her well, she’d still be here. She’s what drew that thing here last night, and she’ll draw it again. That might not be her fault, but there it is. And how are we supposed to fight off that creature with you gone? The villagers won’t stand for it.”
“I don’t care what the villagers think,” he said restively.
“You can’t just go off and leave her here. It’s only chance that we weren’t attacked while you were away before.”
Aruendiel swore, a long, muscular sequence of profanity. “You mean, take her with me? What on earth would I do with her at court? And it’s impossible. I must travel fast and light. I can fly to Semr under my own power, but she can’t.”
“I’m sure you can find some other way to get there, sir.”
Silence. Did that mean Mrs. Toristel was winning the argument? Nora made a swift calculation and decided to take no chances. “I’ll go,” she said loudly, stepping out of the door’s shadow. “I don’t want to put anyone at risk.”
She walked forward composedly, meeting both Aruendiel’s chilly stare and Mrs. Toristel’s worried one. Aruendiel was clenching his right hand, as though to grasp and crush thick hunks of air—a gesture of frustration, or was he about to transform her into a geranium?
“If I really am Ilissa’s tool,” Nora said, “wouldn’t it be better to keep an eye on me?”
Aruendiel emitted a sound of disgusted assent. “If it will relieve your mind, Mrs. Toristel, then very well,” he said. “We leave in a quarter hour.”
“She needs time to get ready,” Mrs. Toristel said.
“A quarter hour.”
It took less time than that for Nora to throw her only other dress and a change of linen undergarments into a cloth sack. As always before leaving on a trip, she had the nagging feeling that she was forgetting something, but there seemed to be nothing else to forget.
When she came downstairs, she found Aruendiel standing over several large tree branches in the center of the courtyard. Mr. Toristel was nearby, holding a saw. The magician bent to pull the branches into the form of a rough cross, one short piece flanked perpendicularly by two long ones. He put something on the end of each of the longer branches. Nora edged closer to see. Chicken feathers. After surveying the arrangement critically, Aruendiel pulled a penknife from inside his tunic and jabbed it into the tip of one finger. Grimacing, he quickly touched all three pieces of wood, leaving a red print on each, then wrapped a handkerchief around his finger.
“How did it go?” he muttered. “No, that’s not it.” His lips moved silently as he rehearsed something to himself. Finally he nodded curtly, apparently satisfied. But as he moved his hand over the wooden cross, it seemed to Nora that there was something uneasy in his demeanor.
She had little time to reflect on this observation, though. The wooden branches were stretching, growing into one another; each of the cross’s two side arms curved and lengthened; and then suddenly both arms of the cross were covered with a thick coat of feathers, lining up as neatly as shingles. The central piece of the cross was still recognizable as a tree branch, but attached to it now were two stubby-looking wings, fifty feet across. They gave a single, stately flap, stirring up a curtain of dust, and then lowered again, quivering slightly.
“No!” said Nora, horrified. “We’re not going to fly on that thing, are we?”
Mrs. Toristel had come out of the house, carrying Aruendiel’s cloak. “Ah,” she said quietly to Nora. “It’s not as bad as it looks. He had one at Lusul, with a saddle on it, specially made.”
“I wish this one had a saddle. It looks dangerous.”
“Not as dangerous for you as staying here.”
The magician came over to them and took his cloak from Mrs. Toristel. “We’re ready to go.” He gave Nora a sweeping glance, taking in her dusty clogs, the dress that was either a dingy brown or a rusty gray (Nora had given up trying to decide), a bit of chicken fluff clinging to her hem. “She’s hardly dressed for court,” he said to Mrs. Toristel with an air of testy pleasure, as though he had finally found a good reason to leave her behind.
“That’s all I’ve got,” Nora said. “My other dress is about the same.” Although she could say with certainty that it was several shades grayer than the other.
Not bothering to suppress a sigh, Aruendiel turned to the winged contraption and carefully lowered himself to sit astride the central branch. Nora clambered onto the branch behind him. There was just enough room to hook her legs in front of the great wings. “I’ll have to hold on to you,” she said to the back of Aruendiel’s head.
“Hold on to the back of my cloak, if you must.”
The huge wings began to beat, slowly at first, then faster. Dust rose around them. The housekeeper stepped back a few paces.
“Thank you, Mrs. Toristel,” said Aruendiel. “I will see you in a few days.”
He hadn’t said we, Nora noticed. “Good-bye,” she said, lifting her free hand. The winged branch lifted off, tilting backward as it rose, and Nora felt herself slide rearward. Uttering a little shriek, she tightened her grip on Aruendiel’s cloak with one hand and grabbed at his shoulder with the other. He tensed slightly under her clutch, but seemed to be too occupied with guiding their flight to protest.
The white speck that was Mrs. Toristel’s face, the slates of the roof, the yellowing fields outside the castle walls, all revolved under Nora’s feet as she and Aruendiel circled, gaining altitude. But not too much altitude. The immense wings, she could somehow tell, were ready to test their power, to keep climbing until they were miles above the earth, but the magician was leaning forward, holding the branch with both hands and fighting to force it down onto a level path, not much higher than the treetops. That was fine with Nora. She watched the village pass below, with more white dots looking up at them, and then more fields.
They were headed southwest, Nora guessed from the angle of the sun. It was hard to enjoy herself, exactly, but overall this was an easier flight than the one from Ilissa’s castle, if only because this time she could see and feel what was keeping her aloft. The great wings pumped away in a rhythm that she began to find almost restful. She was also relieved to note that Aruendiel seemed to have no interest in flying especially fast.
By midafternoon, they had passed half a dozen villages and one good-size town, but the only people who seemed to notice were some children who ran along below, trying to outrace them. Despite the breeze, the sun was warm on her face and shoulders, and it was beginning to make her squint as it sank lower in the sky. Nora yawned.
They were flying roughly along the course of a river that looped through a marsh, leading to a lake just visible ahead. On the river a man fished from a rowboat, the brim of his conical hat tilting as he looked up at them. He was close enough that Nora could tell his mouth had opened in a small O of surprise. But as they flew over, she noticed, the fisherman’s gaze did not follow them. He was looking back at the way they had come.
With sudden disquiet, she twisted back to scan the air. A movement above registered as familiar even before she consciously identified it: The powerful sweep of leathery wings, less than a hundred yards away and gaining.
Nora shook Aruendiel’s shoulder. “It’s Raclin!” She had a quick, irrational fear that the magician had fallen asleep, but no, he had turned his head. She felt his shoulder tighten. Raclin was diving straight at them.
Wings thrusting, their flying contraption torqued upward and to the left, so abruptly that Nora thought she might slide off. The Raclin monster missed them. At once it recovered, turning to climb.
Aruendiel urged their mount into a sort of roller-coaster maneuver—arcing up, dropping down—but Raclin clipped one of their wings as he rocketed past. The wooden mount did a vertiginous half roll before regaining its equilibrium. Now Raclin swooped over their heads, so close that Nora instinctively ducked.
It was painfully obvious that Raclin was both faster and more agile in the air than they were.
“Can’t you do something to him?” Nora cried in Aruendiel’s ear. “The way you did yesterday?”
He snorted. “If I raise a thunderstorm, we’ll be in the middle of it, too.”
“Just make him stop!”
Aruendiel pulled his flying contrivance into a steep climb, trying to outrun Raclin. They were already at least a thousand feet above the ground. But Raclin kept up easily, baring his teeth at them as he flew.
Flying to Semr was a complete mistake, Nora thought savagely. Aruendiel should have realized that Raclin would attack them in the air—he had the advantage there. Raclin was just playing with them now. She thought briefly of how lovely it would be to be a geranium, safely anchored in a big pot in a sunny corner of the castle courtyard.
Apparently deciding that they had climbed high enough, Aruendiel changed tactics. They headed into a dive almost as sharp as their previous ascent. Raclin sped after them, claws out. Every time she looked back, he was closer. And so was the ground, crazy-quilted with bright green marshland and golden fields and deep green forest.
“Where is he now?” Aruendiel shouted, his eyes fixed on their downward path.
“Right behind us.” Surely it was time to pull out of their dive now—right now—
“Good,” Aruendiel said, jerking the branch upward with a sudden effort. With a jolt that almost unseated Nora, they straightened into a fast, level flight path that skimmed the treetops.
Nora looked over her shoulder. If Aruendiel had hoped to outmaneuver Raclin, he had miscalculated. The creature swooped after them, dipping its wings with a flourish. Nora had the distinct impression that Raclin was enjoying himself.
“He’s still there,” she said. Aruendiel didn’t answer. Now they had run out of trees and were flying low over water: the lake that Nora had seen earlier. The wooden wings kept touching the water, throwing up white sprays of foam. Perhaps Aruendiel was preparing for a water landing—another terrible idea, Nora thought, since the Raclin monster looked as though he’d be nearly as comfortable in the water as in the air.
To her alarm, she realized that their speed had slackened. A look back: Raclin was no more than thirty feet behind.
Nora had opened her mouth to warn Aruendiel—couldn’t they go any faster?—when she noticed an agitation in the lake dead ahead. She had the impression of shadowy movement under the surface of the water, something long and black and supple. As they flew over it, on an impulse she raised her dangling feet.
She heard a loud splash behind them, as though Raclin had dipped a wing in the water, too. She twisted to look back.
But there was nothing to see, just a white churning in the water. Raclin had vanished. She twisted around in her seat, looking around the lake and up at the sky. It must be a trick; any minute now he would drop out of the air from some unexpected angle or surge up from the lake water.
“Is he gone?” Aruendiel said after a while.
Nora exhaled. “Yes.”
They reached the other side of the lake and flew on for about a mile. Then Aruendiel guided their mount to the ground, landing with a bump near a small stream.
“A rest,” he said.
“Shouldn’t we go on?” Nora objected. “We’re not far enough away yet. Or is he dead?” she asked hopefully.
“That would be nice,” Aruendiel agreed. “More likely, he is only distracted.”
“With what?”
“Something larger than he is, although less ill-tempered.” The magician untangled himself from the flying contraption and walked over to the stream. He cupped his hands, gulped down some water, and then stood up. He rubbed his shoulder, then regarded his hand with mild curiosity, as though checking for a tremor or some other sign of weakness.
Nora’s mouth and throat were dry, a little sore. Had she been screaming the whole time? She couldn’t remember. She went over to the stream, too, and drank until her hands were chilled from ladling up the cool water.
Aruendiel was rummaging in the leather bag lashed to the branch. He came back with a couple of hard-boiled eggs, the last of the batch from the morning. He tossed Nora an egg and sat down cross-legged to peel the other. They ate in silence.
“Is he a dragon?” she asked finally.
Aruendiel wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “The lake guardian? No.”
“Raclin.”
“Ah. It’s hard to say what he is.” He seemed disinclined to go on, but she looked at him expectantly until he spoke again. “There’s no such thing as a pure Faitoren. Raclin might have some dragon in him. If so, it’s weak. Raclin can’t make fire when he’s flying—fortunately for us.” He added, after a moment’s thought: “Ilissa never said anything to you about Raclin’s father?”
“No. I never even thought to ask. Who was he?”
Aruendiel shook his head. “She’s always been coy about that. Probably with good reason.”
“But it would be impossible, a dragon and a human—”
“Ilissa’s not human.”
“I am, though,” Nora pointed out. “The baby I lost. Raclin’s baby. What would it—?”
“Children tend to resemble their parents. In your case, as I told you before, you would have been dead before you could notice the resemblance,” he said, standing up. “We’d best be moving along. I don’t want to have to fly this thing after dark.”
She got to her feet as a harsh chorus of bird calls began to sound in the forest bordering the meadow—the scornful, furious accents of blue jays and the hoarse alarms of crows. Then, just as suddenly, the birds fell silent. A long, winged shadow appeared over the treetops.
Nora thought: I knew we shouldn’t have stopped. She took a few steps toward the forest, as though that would do any good. Aruendiel stood unmoving, his lifted face pale—frozen with fear, Nora decided, her own hope draining away.
Raclin bulleted toward them, back and wings still slick with lake water. There was no more circling or swooping now, no idle threats, no wicked playfulness in his flight. Only as he closed in—thirty yards, now twenty yards away—did he unsheathe the reptilian grin, allowing himself a jaw-snap in Nora’s direction.
She dropped to the ground, shielding her head with her arms. Against the rush of jagged wings, Aruendiel’s lean figure looked as frail as a twig.
The magician gave a slight, decisive nod, as though, after long consideration, he had finally made up his mind on a difficult point.
The huge wings wilted. The yellow eyes closed. Raclin dropped to the ground.
For a long, stunned moment, Nora waited, still prone, her eyes on the creature’s slumped bulk. One of its wings was flat on the ground, while the other poked upward, askew, like a collapsing tent. A muscular forelimb was flung outward, the claws relaxed, looking almost like a human hand, if you ignored its inhuman size.
Aruendiel walked around the creature slowly. Taking care not to step on the outstretched wings, he tilted his head to view the monster critically from different angles, like a workman inspecting a finished job.
Shakily, she scrambled to her feet. Now she could see that the long, toothy jaw hung slightly open, letting a thread of saliva descend toward the ground. The eyelid facing upward was not entirely closed, either, but the eyeball underneath was as still as glass. Only the surface of Raclin’s torso moved up and down in a sluggish rhythm.
“He’s asleep!” Nora said. “He’s not dead.”
Aruendiel gave a short bark of laughter. “You sound disappointed. Anyone would think you didn’t love your husband.”
“I don’t love him, and he’s not my husband,” she snapped. “Why don’t you just kill him?”
The magician grinned darkly at her. “It’s not so easy to kill Raclin, as you may have noticed. Especially in this form.”
“But he could wake up at any time,” she said. “You said that iron could kill the Faitoren. If we only had a knife or something, couldn’t we simply stab him?”
By way of answer, Aruendiel went over to the leather satchel tied to the flying branch. Nora heard the scrape of metal against metal as, somehow, from a sack that seemed only large enough for a lunch and a change of clothes, he produced a sword as long as his arm. It was doubled-sided, with a plain grip of black-hued steel, and looked heavy, but Aruendiel handled it comfortably enough. He walked back to the sleeping monster and aimed a sharp blow at Raclin’s torso. The tip of the sword bit straight at the heart, but as it touched the lizard hide, it bounced off harmlessly, with a metallic groan.
“Let me try,” Nora surprised herself by saying. Aruendiel looked even more surprised, but after a moment, with an odd smile, he handed her the sword. Lifting it with two hands—it was heavy—she slashed at Raclin. The sword recoiled violently; her stinging hands dropped it.
Aruendiel smiled again, off-kilter. He picked up the sword and ran his finger along the blade to make sure that the steel was undamaged. Raclin stirred uneasily.
“He’s waking up,” Nora exclaimed.
Aruendiel shook his head. “Not with that spell. It’s the hundred years’ sleep—at least, it would be for a human. Raclin might sleep as little as a day. A week or two, more likely.
“The problem, of course, is that when he does wake up, he’ll be extremely well rested and eager to exact revenge. It would be prudent to ensure that he doesn’t wake up.”
“So you are going to kill him.”
“Not exactly. It would not be honorable, while he is sleeping.” Aruendiel was quiet for a moment, motionless. Only when Nora felt butterflies in her stomach, the momentary giddiness that she was beginning to associate with magic, did she realize that he was doing a spell. She looked more closely at Raclin. His grayish green skin had turned darker and had taken on a dull, matte texture. The wet gash of his mouth, the black, serrated rows of teeth, the shining crescents of his partly closed eyes—all were now the same leaden color. She counted to ten, twenty, thirty, but the muscled torso was no longer rising and falling.
She shot an inquiring glance at Aruendiel. He waved her forward impatiently. “Go ahead. He won’t hurt you.”
Nora put her hand on the creature’s unmoving shoulder. It seemed to her that at first there was a flurry of panicked, angry movement under her fingers, as though she had laid her hand on a door behind which a trapped animal was scuffling, and then she felt only the quiet roughness of the stone, barely warmed by the late-afternoon sun.
“How long will this spell last?” she asked, straightening. “A week? Five minutes?” She wished that Aruendiel were not quite so scrupulous about his honor.
“In theory, until the bones of the earth crumble, the seas go dry, and the power of the sun is no more, as the old wizards used to say,” Aruendiel said, sounding more cheerful than he had all day. “In reality, until Ilissa finds him and frees him. Long enough for us to finish our journey in peace, at any rate.”
Nora touched the rock again, reassuring herself that it was dead mineral matter. Turning away, she felt taut muscles in her shoulders and neck begin to relax, although—she reminded herself—there was still the rest of the flight to Semr to endure.
“Why didn’t you turn him to stone before? When he was chasing us?” she asked Aruendiel.
Aruendiel had already settled himself onto the branch, whose wings were beginning to beat in a slow cadence. “I was occupied with flying,” he said shortly. Nora climbed on behind him, twisting slightly as she tried to find a comfortable spot on the tree limb. After a second’s hesitation, she took hold of his shoulder again.
The sprawling form of Raclin-turned-statue dwindled beneath them, dark against the yellowing grass. It looked like a broken toy. Nora watched it steadily until the meadow disappeared behind them. Aruendiel did not look back once.