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peace.”
    â€œMm,” Pirra said doubtfully.
    They knew Echo was in the juniper tree, but it was so dense that they couldn’t see her, and when Pirra called, all she heard was a shriek, which could mean anything. Reluctantly, she followed Userref inside.
    But Echo didn’t come down, and Pirra couldn’t sleep. She had a horrible tangled-up feeling, as if she was trapped and unable to move. Maybe Echo was trapped. Maybe she couldn’t come down.
    As night wore on, the trapped feeling grew worse, and Pirra became more and more convinced that Echo was in trouble. She had to be rescued.
    The wind had dropped, and the courtyard was cold and still. In the torchlight, the bulls’ horns cast spiky shadows on the snow.
    To avoid getting snagged in the branches, Pirra took off her cloak, boots, and socks and left them at the foot of the wall. The pegs were icy beneath her bare feet as she climbed to the lookout post, and a freezing wind swept up from the precipice.
    The sky was just beginning to turn gray, and the juniper was dark and forbidding. Pirra had never climbed a tree in her life. If she made a wrong move, it would be her last.
    It occurred to her that Hylas would have sped up it like a squirrel. Oh, shut up, she told herself. He isn’t here.
    The first branch she grabbed snapped, nearly pitching her over the edge. Breathing hard, she seized another, and clawed and scrabbled her way into the tree.
    â€œEcho?” she panted.
    No answer. But she was here, Pirra felt it.
    The juniper was gritty with ash, and as she climbed higher, Pirra got liberally scratched and her feet went numb with cold. At last, through the branches, she glimpsed feathers.
    Echo was perched just out of reach, her head hunched on her shoulders, fast asleep. In the gloom, Pirra saw that her traces were badly snagged. No wonder she couldn’t get down.
    She was about to call to her when Echo stirred in her sleep. Pirra gasped. The falcon’s right eye was shut, but her left eye was open and alert. One half of her slept—while the other remained awake.
    Once again, it came to Pirra that Echo wasn’t just a tetchy young falcon, but a sacred creature whose spirit could never be wholly known.
    â€œShe is a daughter of Heru the All-Seeing,” Userref had told her. “ Heru the Great Falcon, Lord of the Horizons. The speckled feathers of His breast are the stars, and His wings are the sky: With every downbeat He creates the winds. Heru never sleeps, for His left eye is the Moon, and his right eye is the Sun, which gives life to all . . .”
    Somewhere far beyond the Great Cloud, the Sun woke—and so did Echo. She sneezed, tried to scratch her ear with one foot, realized she was stuck, and struggled to flap her wings.
    â€œKeep still, you’ll hurt yourself!” said Pirra. “I’ll cut you free.”
    Echo swiveled her head and glared at her. Her beak was agape, sending out smoky puffs of breath, but she was listening.
    Still talking, Pirra stretched as far as she could, and offered Echo a scrap of frozen squirrel. Echo relaxed enough to take it, and while she was ripping it to shreds, Pirra drew her knife and cut the traces.
    To her surprise, instead of taking off, Echo gulped the rest of the squirrel, then sidled along the branch and stepped onto her wrist. For a moment, Pirra put her forehead against the falcon’s cool soft breast, and felt Echo’s beak touch her hair. “Thank you, Echo,” she whispered.
    Then the falcon was gone, swooping down to the courtyard, where she perched on the woodpile and called impatiently to Pirra. Eck-eck-eck! Hurry up and come down!
    Stiff with cold, Pirra scrambled out of the tree and down to the courtyard. She’d pulled on her clothes and was dusting herself off when Userref and Silea emerged from the sanctuary.
    The Egyptian saw Echo and smiled. “I told you she’d come down when she was ready.”
    Pirra