Satin Rose and the Witch Hunters

30. The Raven Returns

Satin

Dawn came surprisingly fast. When I was first grabbed, I had tried to protest in vain before coming to a wild conclusion. Did it matter?

The hunter woman's collection was impressively wide, if terribly mundane. Divining rods? Water stones? Sacred dirt? These seemed like stuff Phinion would have come up with instead of an actual hunter. A part of me was secretly hoping that in her bag was something that would work, change me back into a boy. A bigger part of me had grown cynical. So what if I stayed a bird Having been up all night, the blonde stopped immediately when the sun started to rise. Then she slept for about an hour before immediately getting up and picking up her sack.

"Keep an eye on them Dutchess," She muttered, her eyes twitch at irritation.

Pausing at the door, she turned around apparently having forgot that I was still on the table. Untying me, the woman gently, but firmly picked me up, undoing my bonds. Carrying me over to the crate, it was heavier than it looked, and the woman had to pull it back from the wall, twisting it to reveal a plank missing from the hidden side.

She carefully put me in then grabbed a handful of seeds from her pocket as well as her water skin and refilled two tiny cups that were already inside. It was dark here; my eyes were just beginning to adjust when I heard herd the door close and a voice from behind made me jump and hug the wall.

"More company? Wonderful."

From the gloom a silhouette appeared and after a second the face of a disheveled bird was staring at me through squinted eyes. It wasn't just some raven though; it was the raven. The one that had saved me.

"Your alive!"

His wings and feet were tucked tightly, and he was perched on a broken plank of wood. His head was pulled in close making his feathers stand up slightly. He ruffled himself, red eyes blinking slowly.

"Do I really look that bad."

"I thought you been crushed! The last time I saw you was in the cave, when all that dust started kicking up."

"Oh, joy. You're that kid that I saved, sorry I'm not presentable."

He turn away from me, slowly shuffling his feet, but I raced in front of his spreading my wings as if he were going to get away.

"How did you survive? Why aren't you with the others? Why haven't you escaped."

Sighing, the bird could do nothing else except close his eyes. I thought he was going to sleep when he opened his beak again.

"Children really do ask too the wrong questions."

I paused. It had been a while since I had someone to properly talk to too. The starlings had given me a lot of company without conversation. The last time must have been with the spider under my bed. How long had that been? My beak kept quiet for a moment as I thought back to everything that had happened. What was the right question?

"Did the others make it?"

The other ravens eyes slowly opened again.

"They did. The doorway that they opened shone before I was plucked out."

It was only then that I truly noticed how disheveled he was. You don't really notice the shine feathers have until their gone, his looked bone dry and frayed. He was also a little smaller than I was and subtly shivering.

"Are you ok?"

"No. That stunt you pulled twisted more than just your form. The hunter has helped me recover, but we are still in danger." He sighed again, covering his face with a wing like he was face palming. "How about you ask, how do we escape? Then get back to your interrogation."

"Escape?" I repeated.

The crate shook, dust falling around us. Light came through in stray lines through the gap in the planks and a figure twice my size stalked the crates roof, casting a shadow on us. Its eye came up to a crack, slit and looking for something to pounce on.

"Escape," The cat repeated.