“Dumb birds,” Sami muttered to herself. “Don’t they ever stop talking?” She sat on the low tiled stoop behind the rebalancing office. Sighing, she gazed past the pier to watch swirls of magenta and cobalt in the sunrise curving up over the water. The Rotifer’s words kept whispering at the back of her head: Do you accept your powers—and your fate?

The crimson birds turned in big circles, then swept low, close to Sami’s head, the flock muttering furiously, seeming to echo and repeat the same debate in her head. Accept you your journey?

Dorsom emerged from the door and joined her on the back step. “Sleep well?” he asked. He set down a silver tray with two tiny glasses and poured steaming blue tea into each. There was a basket containing warm pita bread, a plate of fried white halloumi cheese, and a bowl of dried herbs. “We must not linger in this place, with the soldiers patrolling. However, a bit of breakfast will help us think.”

Sami sniffed at the spice. “Za’atar! This is just like my mom does breakfast. She’s an amazing cook, but she never thinks I eat enough.”

Dorsom broke off some pita, dipped it in oil, and sprinkled za’atar on it. “This is still just thin Silverworld food, I’m afraid. But better than nothing.”

Sami ate hungrily, once again disappointed by the way the food all evaporated when she tried to swallow it. But this time something else was attracting her attention. “Those birds.” She gestured to the swooping, arguing flock. “Is that the usual way—I mean, in Silverworld—for birds to act?”

Dorsom peered in the direction Sami was pointing. The flock’s deep scarlet hue seemed to streak in pink scrolls in the air. But Sami was talking about the way an odd stream of mist appeared to roll and coil between the birds. They squawked and flapped and pinwheeled, dipping and soaring and diving.

Dorsom stood slowly, eyes tracking the flock. “They are out of alignment. In distress, I think.” He lifted his arms, walking out to the start of the pier, and closed his eyes. Sami felt a low rumble that seemed to emanate from his hands. The birds flew lower, then began to circle the Flicker, as if they were being pulled inward by a string.

Eventually they flew in a close red formation around Dorsom. He stood perfectly still, eyes closed, when suddenly he gave a sort of shudder. His hand shot out and the flock broke apart, flying off in a hundred directions. Sami thought they’d all scattered, but then she realized he was holding a bird.

It was plump and pigeon-shaped, and it seemed to be wearing a dark wrapper. Or trying to squeeze out of it. As Sami came closer, she saw the vapor move, swirling along its body, spiraling over its head, then wings, then tail feathers. The bird squawked and twisted as if it couldn’t flap its wings.

Dorsom lifted the bird in both hands, filled his lungs, and began a kind of humming, which intensified until Sami felt it in her bones. Natala emerged from the headquarters and quietly joined them. No one spoke as Natala walked forward, her left hand lifted. She was wearing a large silver ring covering two fingers. Its gemstone flashed tones of deep purple and she nodded and said, “Three joules. It’s near the deepest end of the scale. Fine to proceed.” Then she looked around hastily as she stepped back beside Sami.

Now Dorsom lifted his head. The hum grew louder and more forceful, and the roiling shadow seemed to increase, covering more and more of the frantic animal’s body, until Dorsom appeared to be holding a gray paper cutout of a bird. Then the shadow began to expand downward, covering his own hands and wrists. Sami didn’t know what any of this meant, yet her breath sped up and her heart pounded. “Dorsom, be careful!” she cried out.

Suddenly, the bird gave a cawing, prehistoric shriek, and the shadow exploded into a spray of powder, vanishing into the air. Flapping wildly, the bird sailed off into the trees.

Dorsom’s shoulders fell. For a moment, he stood, hands on his hips, head dropped, and panting for breath. Natala and Sami helped guide him to sit on the steps.

“Did you just—wow. What was that?” Sami sat beside Dorsom. “Did you just kill a Shadow?”

Rebalanced it. Dorsom shook his head. Shadow escaped, he thought breathlessly.

“Very powerful specimen,” Natala said, gazing over the pier. “How did you manage to spot it? It’s usually impossible to sight a midair Shadow soldier.”

Still breathless, Dorsom pointed to Sami. Both Flickers turned to her.

“I didn’t know what the heck that thing was,” Sami protested. “Just that it looked pretty bad.”

A bird fluttered down between Sami and the Flickers and cocked its head at her. “I owe you a debt.”

Startled, Sami stepped back as the bird hopped toward her; it twitched its feathers and cocked its head in the other direction. Its sky-blue head tapered to a bib of white feathers down its front, its back glowed an unearthly bright red, and its feet were neon pink. So—did that bird just talk to me? Sami asked Dorsom.

In Silverworld, all living beings have language, he answered. His smile was still a bit weak.

The bird remained fixed on Sami. “I would have certainly died. No Flicker can see an airborne Shadow. Rotifer was right: you are a Silverwalker.”

“You know about that?” Sami gaped.

“Our birds are marvelous eavesdroppers,” Natala said with a smile. “And gossips.”

Another bird settled beside the first in a flutter. This one had sea-green eyes. “She’s ready, she is?” it said.

“Ready?” Sami looked from one to the other.

“For the back way,” the first bird said. “Our gift to you.”

“Wait.” Sami watched them carefully. “Do you mean…the way back home?” She felt a shiver of hope, despite herself.

“Call it as you will.” A third pigeon, plumper than the other two, drifted down. This one had red plumage all over, but its beak glittered as if it had been cut from diamond. “We would like to—to thank you.”

Ah, yes, Sami heard Natala thinking. The birds—they would know.

The plump one tipped its head. “In both Worlds we dwell, and regularly migrate between.”

“Back, forth,” the first bird said.

Sami was starting to understand. “Birds—live in both Worlds?”

“Hold on here,” Dorsom cut in. “Sami hasn’t had time to think about this yet—have you, Sami?”

The birds twitched their feathers. “No time for think. ’Tis leaving time now, if she wishes to go! She needs must make ready.” The blue-headed bird lifted and lowered its powerful wings a few times. The breeze had grown steadily stronger and the sky was filled with high clouds.

“Wait.” Natala held her hand out. “We must consider.”

Sami rubbed her arms—they were all gooseflesh. These birds were offering to help her get home! Yet for a moment she held back, thinking of her grandmother, wondering what Teta would have wanted her to do. Was she meant to be here, as Rotifer had said? But it was so hard to think of staying when suddenly there was a possibility of going home.

“If we are to do this,” the red-gray bird said, “it must be now.” The birds hopped out to an open stretch of grassy, sandy land that rolled along the beach. There were no palm trees, just rich, jade-colored blades of beach grass that glowed brighter as the sky darkened.

Sami walked toward them, shaking her head. “I’m grateful, really, this is so kind—but I’m not sure…”

Sami noticed then that several more birds had arrived. In fact, more and more were fluttering down to crowd around her feet, the three original birds piping and twittering in what sounded just like birdsong from the Actual World, bright and sprightly.

Very quickly then, dozens, hundreds of birds were landing, crowding the grass, milling around, jerking their heads, moving stiff-legged, chirping, and hopping. Many were pigeons, but there were also spotted pink parrots, and ibis that glowed like opals, and herons that looked like they’d been dipped in liquid gold. There were canaries, macaws and sparrows, seagulls and pelicans, and one that lifted its tail into a snow-white peacock fan.

“Prepare yourself!” the red bird called out.

“Wait—guys—I need to tell you—I’m really not sure about it,” she said cautiously.

“It’s time, it’s time!” a coral-colored falcon screeched.

“But wait—I—I think maybe this isn’t the right time after all,” Sami blurted. “I can’t do it. Not right now.” But the birds were making a racket of flapping and chirping, none of them listening. She could see Dorsom and Natala getting crowded out behind a wall of beating wings.

“We shall begin!” one of the pigeons cried. The birds started hopping up her legs and fluttering on her arms and shoulders. Sami gave a tiny yelp and a parakeet on her head jumped off, but they kept coming, batting their wings in her ears and face, and it was all she could do not to beat them away.

“Stop, wait!” she shouted, pulling in her arms. But they just kept climbing and batting. Another bird voice shrieked, “Lift, lift, lift!” All at once, the toes of her sneakers were sweeping the ground, her T-shirt and jeans yanked up high, a hurricane of feathers and bird voices and bird cries. In another moment, she was looking down and the two Flickers were below, jumping and shouting. Birds—return her at once! Dorsom thought-called.

Instead, they kept rising, the birds climbing on the wind. “Put me down!” she yelled, but none of them could hear her in the thunder of flapping. They were quickly very high. Below them the wind was tossing around the palm trees, their big fronds slapping and waving. The birds struggled a bit, jostled by the gusts. Her hair slapped at her face and she couldn’t brush it away as every bit of her was pinned by birds. She craned, and twisted her head, and glanced up to the clouds.

There was an odd shift in the light, a sort of sparkling overhead. Sami blinked through her hair and the dazzling light, looked directly into the sky, and saw her grandmother’s face.