The Margrave by Catherine Fisher Page B

to the west beyond the jagged hills, another of the sisters must be rising, her ghostly glow lighting the dim clouds.
    The sisters. Carys grinned, moving into the shadow of the house. She’d been around keepers too long. Raffi had filled her head with all those old folktales; things old Jellie had never taught, or only mentioned with scorn.
    The cottage had been deserted when they’d ridden in, but the ashes of the fire were barely cold and some milk in a jug on the windowsill still fresh. Whoever lived here had abandoned the place in a hurry; they might well be hiding up there in the hills, thinking Scala had been leading a patrol, or maybe they’d already been taken for the castle or the Wall. Or they might be closer than that, watching.
    There were some outbuildings. An empty stable that would do. Rats rustled in the straw. Carys stepped inside without a sound, into a shadowy, dung-smelling corner, and listened. Then she unscrewed the relic. The small lights seemed brighter than before; maybe it was the moonlight that affected them. They were tiny points of blue; as she held down the button they instantly went red. It never ceased to fascinate her.
    She had to keep it operating for the right amount of time. Galen had said that the relic still had power, that if he was close enough he would feel it, and even if he was too far it would leave a trace of its presence here, a faint glimmer of energy he could detect when he came.
    Thumb tight on the button, Carys counted anxious seconds. The Sekoi was alive—one good thing. She’d seen it jump on the bridge. And Raffi—they would have hauled Raffi up through the trapdoor. Of course they would. The whiteness of his face came back to her, the sudden terror of that plunging fall.
    Her thumb slipped. The lights went blue. “Blast,” she hissed. She pressed again—it was tiny and awkward, and then a movement up in the rafters brought the sweat out on her back. Hastily she screwed the relic tight, whipped a knife out of her belt, and turned.
    “All right,” she said firmly. “I know you’re there. Come out and you won’t get hurt.” The darkness of the barn was utterly silent. Even the rats seemed to have gone. Through a rectangular opening in the roof she could see stars, and moonlight falling onto the hay loft, the last tumbled bales, their long stalks spilling, gnawed, dragged out by birds. Then something answered her.
    It was a low, churring noise, high up, so eerie, it made the hairs on her neck prickle.
    She stared through the dark. “We’re the Watch,” she hissed, breathless. “Give yourself up.”
    A narrow gray object drifted past her shoulder, down through the moonlight. Her heart gave a great leap; she grabbed at the thing and caught it left-handed. It was a feather. She turned instantly, her whole body alert.
    The owl was enormous. It had perched on the crossbar above her, a species she had never seen before, its face smooth and pale, the small beak hooked. Maybe it was a ghost-owl, or one of the Great Blacks that had gathered and mourned over the fields of the dead after the Sekoi battles.
    Its eyes unnerved her. They were perfectly round pools of faceted darkness; she imagined how she must look to it—an upturned white face, shifting planes of light, unprotected. She stepped back.
    The owl’s stare was unblinking. She saw, with a thrill of surprise, that it wore around its neck a thin, jeweled collar. Carys swallowed. “Can you understand me?” she whispered.
    The owl made no movement, no sound. Its huge stillness made her feel foolish and threatened, but she went on quickly. “I know you can understand the Sekoi. One of them is coming, a gray striped one, with two Starmen. In a few days, maybe. Tell them I was here. Tell them we’re heading for the Wall at a place called Flor’s Tower, west of here. Remember that. The Wall.”
    The owl made a small churr. It stared at her and blinked once, swiveled its head and watched a spider run speedily