As the Crow Falls | ✔

Chapter Two

Whatever dregs were left of Niccola's good mood evaporated as she pushed open the door to the painting room. The plate of biscuits the sisters had requested this morning sat in the middle of the table, but its mess of crumbs spread across the hardwood like constellations. A biscuit with a single bite taken out of it lay crushed on the floor. From the angle of the smear, one sister had thrown it at the other, who had stepped on it.

Niccola's mother would have sent her or her sister to the kitchen to wash pots with the cooks given such an infraction. If the food on the floor was inedible, she'd make whoever dropped it clean it up and take it to the rookeries for the crows to finish—or if not the rookeries, then the henhouse of the nearest family who looked in need of feeding. Niccola clenched her broom like a weapon to resist the urge to use it like one. The crow she'd befriended three moons ago was perched in the tree outside. Feeding her would be the least egregious of all the destinations for a crushed biscuit. That way, at least the food would not go to waste.

When the table and floor were clean, Niccola double-checked that none of the Bel Ilans had returned, then popped the latch on the window. The crow landed on her proffered arm. Niccola brought her to the table where the plate of gathered crumbs lay waiting.

"Eat," she said. "It's your reward for helping me after this."

The crow bobbed her head in reply. She had always been mute when spoken to, and Niccola had grown accustomed to the silence. With body language at her disposal, it was no real challenge. If anything, the only shortfall was that Niccola had never learned this crow's name, and her parents had always maintained a strict policy of only calling crows by the names their own kind gave them. Names translated by Niccola's mother or Phoebe, the only magic-carriers—barrowers—of the family until seven moons ago.

Body language was enough, at least, to express the crow's appreciation for the food. She pecked delicately at the remains of the biscuit while Niccola prowled the room. There was rarely anything of interest here, and today was no exception. The only change was on the easel in the corner. The scene its canvas depicted bore more detail than the last time Niccola had seen it, and she stopped for a moment to survey it. Admire was not the right word. But Esther was admittedly a fair hand at painting.

The scene was a familiar one, done up in colours that lay adjacent to reality in a not-unpleasant manner. Centered on the canvas was the steep, pitched roof of the shrine Niccola passed every time she went to market. People in the lowlands went there to leave food offerings for the crows that speckled the sky, perched along the eaves of buildings, and lurked inside the edges of the Talakova. As with most views in Calis, the great forest and its birds brooded in the background of the painted scene. The Talakova had a presence, and Esther had captured it.

Niccola turned back to the table to find the crow watching her. The sparkle of intelligence danced in the bird's eye, a sentience that had always drawn Niccola in a way that few other animals did. Or perhaps that was her home realm's bias talking. Varna raised crows, after all, and both trained and traded them as the basis of their economy. Varnic crow messengers, trackers, scouts, and aides were well-renowned throughout the Ring of Thirty. Still, Niccola could see how a less crow-accustomed realm like Calis could develop so many superstitions about the birds. Leah, for one, believed them to be the eyes of the Talaks, wild spirits of the Talakova. Her view was not a lone one among the Calisian upper class.

"Was it good?" Niccola asked with a nod to the biscuit plate, and got the bob of a head and body in return. The crow went back to watching her. Niccola dropped to a chair and picked up a stray paintbrush, tapping its handle on the table. "Are you ready to help me?"

Affirmation was immediate. The crow had been waiting for her to bring up the second half of her proposition, and another smile tugged the corner of Niccola's lips. Crows might be the only species that opting into her family's magic-line allowed her to converse with, but she'd choose them over other birds any day. Their intelligence and curiosity predisposed them to mischief, and most were more than happy to assist her whenever she needed their wings and beaks for targeted misconduct.