Found by Sarah Prineas

he said. He went across the clearing and saddled his horse, then came back and fetched his sword and kicked my sword farther from the tree so I couldn’t reach it.Then he swung up into the saddle.
    “I am going to join Lady Rowan,” he said. “And you”—he pointed at me—“will be here when we return.” He kicked his horse into a high-stepping trot down the rutted road.
    As he rode away, I heard him laughing.

 
     
    ----
    Am beginning to think I made a mistake allowing boy to leave city. Magic is behaving oddly. Spells are working erratically or not at all. Magisters a quivering mess. People of city nervous. Duchess unresponsive. Have visited Dusk House pit; the magic seems to be focused there. Why? Gathering its strength? In hiding? Can Arhionvar be closer than we realized? I do not quite understand this conflict between magics. The boy has proven well enough that the magics are beings that live—if “live” is truly what they do—in our human cities, but I have not carefully considered what this might mean, and why a living magic such as Arhionvar would seek to kill another city’s magic.
    I wonder, too, where the magics came from,what they truly are. Must look into historical grimoires, see if I can find further information. The more we know, the more likely we are to find some way to defeat Arhionvar.

----

CHAPTER 15
    W hen Argent had tied me to the tree, he’d left a length of rope between my wrists so my arms weren’t pulled back too badly. I edged down the trunk until I was sitting on the soft, pine-needly ground.

    Across the clearing, Mud-brown was still tied by the reins to a tree branch. The horse stood quietly,ignoring me. In a tree over the horse’s head sat the three black birds.
    “Come down and peck at these ropes, birds,” I called. At the sound of my voice, Mud-brown twitched an ear. A bird sailed down from its branch and landed on the grass beside my leg, then hopped up to my knee.
    Awk , said the bird. It cocked its head and looked at me with its yellow eye.
    “The ropes,” I said.
    Awk-awk-awk , it said. Was it laughing at me?
    It fluffled its feathers, then hopped off my knee and flapped back to its branch. The other two birds moved over to give it room. They sat there like feathery black lumps, watching me.
    Bits of pine needles and bark were stuck in my coat and prickled against my back. I had a lockpick sewn into my shirt sleeve, but that wasn’t going to help with knots. I pulled at the ropes for a bit with no luck getting them loose.
    Drats. I’d just have to wait until Rowan came back.
    I leaned my head against the bumpy bark of the tree, closed my eyes, and listened to the singing of the spell-line. After a while, I fell asleep.
     
    I woke up hearing the cackle-crackle of the birds across from my tree. They muttered to each other and hunched into their wings, looking at the sky.
    The sun shone orangey-gold through the trees. Late afternoon. Rowan would be back soon, wouldn’t she? My arms were getting stiff.
    The birds’ chattering grew louder. The horse lifted its head and snorted. In the distance I heard a deep rumble-hum, and then a grating shriek racing up the spell-line toward me; I was halfway to my feet when it slammed into me and echoed around in my skull, making my teeth hurt. I slid back to the ground. A swift black shadow passed over the clearing.
    Quick I shook the shriek out of my head and looked up to see what had made the shadow.
    Nothing, just late-afternoon sky.
    A cloud?
    No. No cloud moved that fast.
    I pressed my back against the pine tree. Across the clearing, the horse snorted again and lifted its head, looking around with wide eyes. The birds had disappeared. Everything was silent and still.
    From the direction of the road came the sound of clopping hooves; after a moment, Rowan rode into the clearing, looking around. Seeing me tied to the tree, she shook her head. She got down from her horse and tied it next to Mud-brown, then headed over