31. Wren #2
We try calling for it, hoping, desperately, that she’s just stepped away, she’s just hiding behind the trees. We split off temporarily, searching the surrounding bushes. Robin searches too, but comes up empty.
We find nothing.
“I—I need to be back tonight,” Cassiel says, his words tripping over each other. “If I’m not—if Dain doesn’t see me—he won’t have a choice. He’ll mobilise the knights. They’ll march on the forest.”
The image flashes, unwanted and vivid: steel and torches under the trees. Blood where there should only be moss and roots. Burned branches, if we’re lucky. Death if we’re not.
“We can go on foot,” I say, already knowing the answer. “But… but it’ll take us two days, even at a push.”
Cassiel winces. “Sorry. I just—two days is too long.”
I force myself to think, to breathe past the tightness in my chest, trying to carve us a better path. We could take a boat part of the way, but it’s upstream.
We’ll never make it.
“I could fly—” I start.
The words die as soon as they leave my mouth.
It doesn’t matter if I can. Dain needs to see Cassiel. Proof of life. Proof of loyalty. Proof that nothing has gone wrong. Cassiel isn’t even supposed to be able to write—any letter I delivered would be dismissed as trickery at best. Treason at worst.
Cassiel exhales a laugh that isn’t a laugh at all. “Unless you can make me fly, we still have a problem.”
I go very still.
Days ago, by the fire, I’d told him that I didn’t know the limits of my power. With enough time and knowledge and resources, I can do almost anything my mind can comprehend.
Mortals had been changed before, into all manner of shapes. The trick has never been whether it could be done.
It was whether it could be undone.
My mind races, fitting fragments together. If I get this wrong—
Cassiel is watching me now, distress giving way to something more dangerous: hope. “Wren?” he prompts.
“I have an idea,” I say slowly. “And depending on how well it goes,” I add, meeting his eyes, “you might actually like it.”
We return to Brindlewick at a run.
The village takes one look at us and moves as one body. No questions, no panic—just action. When I explain, briefly and breathlessly, what’s wrong and my proposed solution, the brownies nod like this is merely an unusually complicated inconvenience.
“Temporary change?” one asks.
“Um, yes please?” I say. “I rather like that body of his, and I’m certain he does too.”
“I do, in fact,” says Cassiel, flexing just a little. “Rather enjoying it at present, particularly at night.”
I shoot him a glare that I barely mean.
“Potion, then,” another replies.
A potion was my preference, to. It’s less likely to be permanent than the other options. The trick, of course, is getting the ingredients.
The residents seem to realise this too. They split immediately. Doors bang open. Baskets are thrust into hands. Someone shouts about river-reeds and someone else about dawn-feathers, and suddenly the hollow is full of motion.
I kneel at the brewing table, forcing myself into stillness. This is the part that matters. Transformation magic isn’t brute force—it’s negotiation. You don’t tell a body what to become; you persuade it, carefully, to remember a different truth for a little while.
Ingredients are placed before me as they arrive. I sort them with reverence.
Dawn-feather, shed naturally from a migratory bird, never plucked. If it’s taken by force, the feather will remember, and Cassiel’s body will try and resist the transformation.
The next ingredient is moon-thistle sap, viscous and pale, to bind the ingredients with magic. Several binding agents would do the job—you can even use something as basic as honey, if your own magic is strong enough to balance it—but moon-thistle is extra good with transformative potions.
Ground lake-pearl, no more than a pinch, to stabilise the form and keep thought intact. And binder-resin, dark and sharp-smelling, distilled from oak-galls—too much and the spell would cling. Too little and it would slip apart mid-flight.
Four hours, I remind myself. I need this to work for four hours. No more, no less.
Cassiel is tall and long-limbed. I adjust the ratios by instinct, by memory, by fear. My hands tremble, so I still them against the table until they obey.
I light the fire beneath the cauldron myself. I coax it low and steady, a thin blue-orange flame. Too hot, and the potion will rush. Too cool, and it will sulk.
I grind the pearl slowly, counter-clockwise, until it sings faintly against the stone. I bruise the dawn-feather between my fingers, releasing its magic without tearing it. I let the moon-thistle sap drip exactly seven drops—no more—into the pot, watching each one vanish with a soft hiss.
The mixture clouds, clears and then darkens into what my memory tells me is the right colour.
“Cass,” I say without looking up, “pack everything into one bag. Just one.”
“All right,” he says, then, cautious, “why?”
“I’ll have to carry it. I can disappear the pack into my body, but you won’t be able to.”
Cassiel pauses. “Does this mean I’ll have to be naked?”
“Yes.”
He sighs like a martyr. “The things I do for you…”
He starts taking off his clothes.
“You don’t have to be naked right now!”
“Let’s not pretend you don’t like me this way.”
I huff a laugh despite myself, though my focus never leaves the brew.
I sprinkle the binder-resin last, shaving it thin with a blade, watching the potion thicken to the exact consistency I want—like oil just before it smokes.
I draw a stabilising sigil in the steam, and lower the flame until it gutters out on its own.
The potion settles into a deep, iridescent black-green, light catching on it like feathers.
I bottle it quickly. My heart is in my throat.
Four hours. Please.
I whistle for Robin. He dutifully arrives at my side.
I take out some of the bread we’ve been given and drop it into the remainder of the potion.
Guessing how much he’ll need for himself is trickier, but he’ll have to be transformed if he is to come with use.
Luckily, animals tend to take to different forms well—they’re highly adaptable.
He should feel instinctively that the transformation is wearing off before he drops mid-air.
I’ve no such assurances about Cassiel.
I take a deep breath, and pass Robin the bread. He sniffs at it, glancing at Cassiel. He’s ready—bag packed, trying very hard to look calm and failing in a way that only makes him more himself.
“It’s all right,” he says, “you can take it.”
Robin swallows the bread whole.
For a minute, nothing happens. Cassiel stares, fingers twitching.
Come on, I will it. Please!
Robin snorts, then makes a hacking sound, like a cat about to cough up a hairball. His fur raises along his back… and changes into feathers. He makes a motion like that of a sneeze, and suddenly the dog vanishes.
A tiny brown bird with a red-and-white chest flitters around the glade instead.
“Oh,” Cassiel says, smiling. “A robin.”
I grin too. Robin flits around my face, hovering above us. At least it works.
“How does the potion work with the breed of bird?” Cassiel asks. “Is there an element of choice, or—”
I shake my head. “I mean, I could probably alter my form, if I wanted, but I’m afraid I didn’t specify anything in this potion. You’ll get a form that speaks to this one.”
“I’m going to be a hawk.”
I laugh.
“What? It’s majestic.”
“Honestly, I think you’re more of a tit.”
Cassiel glares, but it’s a light one. “Come on,” he says, “hand it over.”
Grudgingly, I pass over the vial.
“You won’t be able to talk,” I remind him. “When you’re a bird. We’ll use whistles instead. Stay very close to me.”
“You know I will.”
I swallow. “I’m worried this won’t work. Or that it’ll work… too well. That you’ll end up a bird forever.”
He steps closer, voice gentle. “Well. If I do—at least I’ll get to stay with you.”
Before I can argue—before I can tell him not to say that—he takes the bottle and drinks it in one smooth motion.
“Cass—!”
Magic surges.
His clothes fall away as his body folds inward, reshaping with terrifying grace. Bones lighten. Arms stretch and split into wings. Feathers burst across his skin, bright and glossy, catching the light like the sun itself.
Gone is Cassiel, the man. In his place is a beautiful bird with glossy golden wings.
A sunfinch. An unusual choice. It doesn’t possess magic of its own, but its feathers are used in many a spell. It’s a fey bird, not a mortal one.
He circles the glade, whistling and chirping with unmistakable delight, diving and climbing with wild, joyous confidence. No hesitation and no confusion. His whistles are bright, exuberant, unmistakably him.
Cassiel. Entirely Cassiel. Just… feathered.
Relief hits me so hard my vision blurs.
I gather his clothes with shaking hands, fold them carefully, and tuck them away into our sole pack. There’s no time to tidy the potion-making; I’m sure the brownies won’t mind, and they can have fun with the remains if they so choose.
I close my eyes and summon my own magic.
When I launch into the air, Cassiel is already there—falling neatly into place beside me, close as promised, chirping once in triumph as we turn toward the open sky together.