As the Crow Falls | ✔

Chapter Twenty

By the end of the next half-hour, Isaiah suspected it was a good thing they had planned a second meeting for the following day. The conversation devolved into food the moment the snacks arrived, returned to patterns of disappearances, veered into stories about past necromantics in the Ring of Thirty, fell down a long and fascinating recounting of historical events, was hauled back to the topic at hand, and then derailed again when Niccola grew too curious about the bird Isaiah was felting, and had to ask what it was. It was a cliff swallow, recreated from memories of the tame one he'd once held at an aviary in Madeira.

"An aviary?" asked Niccola, puzzled.

"Like a rookery, but for other birds. Some rich noble keeps it because she's in love with birds, and rescues ones she finds caught and sold on the black market, if they're unable to return to the Talakova."

Niccola lit up immediately. "I didn't even know that was a thing that could exist. What was it like?"

Their love of birds was shared. Niccola preferred corvids for their intelligence, a stance that made complete sense for one as sharp as her. Most people Isaiah spoke to picked favorites among birds they thought were prettiest in plumage, flight, or song, leaving little space to name what he loved about them. The delicacy of their frames and softness of their feathers, the sharp inquisitiveness of their motions, and just how well-suited each seemed to its habitat. Niccola was also the first he'd ever met who shared his admiration of starlings.

"There was one in the aviary that had learned to sing the tune of a dozen different instruments," he said. "And two dozen other bird calls, and a range of animal and domestic sounds besides. I cannot tell you how many times my father checked his pocket that visit because he thought he'd lost his pocket-watch, only to find it was just the bird ticking away in the corner. To this day, I think she thought it was funny to watch him search."

"Where in Madeira was it?" said Niccola.

"Do Varnic citizens have authorization to cross the border? I thought they'd not yet lifted those laws from Dinah's era."

"They haven't. Maybe I need Calisian citizenship, then." Her voice turned sly. "How do your laws work on that front?"

This sidetracked into Calis legislation. The answer to the question, of course, was legal partnership through marriage or a similar means, but the two of them showed such propensity for diversions that they soon ended up on the topic of Crow Moon celebrations—or lack thereof. Here lay one of the most striking differences between their realms, despite similar size and relatively close proximity.

"I had no idea it was such a positive occasion in Varna," said Isaiah. "People here would never spend so long in the Talakova on a Crow Moon, nor bring their families. They grieve even to bury their barrower dead between the trees. Most have two cemeteries, just so they do not have to consign non-barrower loved ones to the same fate."

"Two cemeteries! We would never imagine splitting a family like that. Is that why there are cemeteries at the Talakova's edge? So they might be as close as possible?"

Isaiah was about to answer yes when footsteps shuffled heavy on the other side of his door. He recognized his father's gait a moment later—a moment of panic that it had been his mother instead.

His father's heavy knock was followed by his voice. "I hope you plan to sleep tonight, son."

Isaiah's good mood burst like a soap bubble. He did not respond.

His father knocked again. "Isaiah?"

"I will."

"Good."

He shuffled away. A long silence followed, until Niccola ventured, "I should leave, then."

"What time is it?"