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didn’t reply.
    Silea was eyeing her suspiciously. “Mistress, you have juniper prickles in your hair.”
    â€œSo I have,” Pirra said coolly.

    A few days later, Echo flew off and didn’t come back.
    Since being rescued from the tree, her flying had improved incredibly fast, with agile swerves and heart-stopping drops. Pirra had worried that she’d crash, until Userref had pointed out the extra feathers on the elbows of her wings: “They’ll slow her down till she can handle an adult’s speed.”
    But suddenly Echo wasn’t there anymore. Pirra stood in the courtyard, unable to take it in. She had a sense of a high, cold, limitless sky, and knew that Echo was far away. “I didn’t think she’d go so soon,” she whispered.
    â€œShe may still return,” said Userref.
    â€œBut it’s been a whole day, and she hasn’t learned to hunt!”
    â€œThe Wild is her home, Pirra. She’ll learn. And who knows, maybe she’ll bring back the Sun.”
    Pirra didn’t care about the Sun; she wanted Echo.
    When Userref had gone inside, she climbed to the lookout post. Clouds seeped over the crags, and the pines stood silent on the slopes. Behind the waterfall’s muted roar, she sensed the vast brooding presence of the mountain. She was alone again. Trapped in this endless gray twilight.
    Without Echo, her chamber was deathly quiet. The remains of a pigeon wing dangled from the bedpost, and on the floor stood a small earthenware dish of water. Echo had ignored it—Userref said falcons rarely drank—but Pirra had found this so hard to believe that she’d put it there anyway.
    Beside it lay one of Echo’s pellets, delicately woven of mouse fur and bones. Pirra stooped to put it in her amulet pouch—and suddenly the floor tilted, a wave of weakness washed over her, and her knees buckled and she went down.
    The next thing she knew, she was lying in bed. Userref was tucking sheepskins around her, and Silea was warming a bowl over the brazier.
    The glow of the embers hurt Pirra’s eyes. “Wha’ happened?” she mumbled.
    â€œIt’s nothing,” Userref said in a low voice. “You caught a fever, being out in the cold.”
    It didn’t feel like nothing. Her head was cracking open and she was freezing and burning up at the same time.
    When she woke again, she ached all over, her teeth were chattering, and needles of fire were piercing her skull.
    Userref sat cross-legged on the ground, rocking and muttering a charm in Egyptian. He’d reverted to his old linen kilt, and on his bare chest she saw his wedjat amulet: the sacred eye of his falcon-headed god. Over the winter, he’d taught Pirra a little of his speech, and she understood snatches of the charm. “My fledgling is hot in the nest . . . the black seeds of sickness fly towards her . . . All-seeing One, let them not touch her . . .”
    Pirra shut her eyes, but that made her dizzier. She spiraled down into the whirling dark . . .
    Now Hylas was bending over her, scowling through his shaggy fair hair. “What have you done with Havoc?” he demanded. “You were supposed to look after her!”
    â€œI lost her,” she mumbled.
    â€œThis always happens,” he complained. “I make friends, then I lose them. But this time, it’s your fault!”
    What about me? she wanted to say. You didn’t lose me, you sent me away.
    But she was so weak her lips wouldn’t move, and the pain in her head was agonizing. She tried to tell him that she was sorry about Havoc, but as she squinted up at him, he turned into Silea. The slave girl was clutching a steaming basin and shaking with terror. “I c-can’t touch her,” she stammered. “I’ll catch it too!”
    â€œGive that to me,” snapped Userref. Snatching the basin, he dipped in the cloth and gently wiped