"I don't know," he replied at last, passing the canteen to her. "I've never seen - or heard - of anything like it, not in all of my fifty-three years."

They rested for a while, talking. At last Niko got to his feet. "I don't think I could work that spell again, but I should look at Pirate's Point anyway," he said. "Let's go."

She was following him to the stairs when she heard the cheeping sound that had caught her ear before. Now it was close by, and growing faint rapidly.

"Wait," she called. Carefully she searched the tumbles of rock on her left. In a niche made by stones gleaming with traces of magic, she found a birds' nest. One chick was still alive - she'd been hearing its peeping cries. It shared the nest with a dead brother or sister.

"A starling, I think," Niko said, looking over her shoulder. "They sometimes have a second brood in midsummer. The parents are probably dead, if they nested here. This one will die soon."

Tris looked at the nestling. That's not right, she thought, digging for her pocket handkerchief. He didn't ask to have his home destroyed. Kneeling, she flattened the linen square on a rock, and reached for the nest.

"Tris, think a moment," ordered Niko crisply. "You can't save it."

"Why not?" With a gentleness that she rarely showed to people, she eased both hands under the wad of twined grass-stems.

"Because it's nearly dead now. See how young it is? It barely has pin-feathers. If it lives, it will need warmth and hourly care. It isn't ready to survive on its own."

"Then I'll help. I'll feed him - I'll do whatever I must." Resting her hands on the cloth, she drew them away gently, until nest and occupant rested on the handkerchief. "It's not his fault his parents got killed."

Niko sighed, and offered his own pocket handkerchief. "You can return to Winding Circle. As I said, even with your help, I can't work a second timespell at Pirate's Point. If the site looks like this, though" - his wave took in the sooty wreckage all around him - "I think we can guess what happened. Hold the nestling up." He opened his water canteen, and carefully poured a tiny amount of liquid into his palm. Gently and precisely, using his fingers as a slide, he rolled a few drops of water at a time into the bird's open beak as Tris raised the nest for him. When the chick closed its mouth and sank back, Niko told Tris, "Now cover it. Keep it warm, and out of draughts - I know that much. For the rest -"

"I could ask the dedicates at the Air temple. They keep birds." Slowly, a bit at a time, she got to her feet, and tucked the covered nest into the corner of her elbow.

Looking down at his student, Niko grinned. "Actually, try Rosethorn. She often finds nestlings in her garden. She's even raised a few."

Tris stared at him. She was terrified of Rosethorn. The auburn-haired woman had a sharp tongue, and a quick temper.

"Do you want to be running to the Air dormitory every hour? Rosethorn will know what to do. I still doubt it will live -"

"He."

"Tris, no one will be able to tell until it's ready to mate what sex it is."

"Then it might as well be a he as an it," she told him stubbornly. "Its are dead things. Shes and hes are alive."

"Oh, very well. I haven't time to argue. If you insist on trying to save it - him -"

"I do." Tris gulped, thinking of what lay ahead. "I hope Rosethorn will help me."

"She will. She likes birds much more than she likes people. Let's go, then. You need to feed and settle him, and I need to go to Pirate's Point."

Steadying her new charge with her free hand, Tris followed Niko down the stairs.

Chapter Three

If Tris had looked across the thousand feet of water that separated the island from the land, she would have seen three people on the rocky slope below Winding Circle's walls. One of them was Daja, dressed as she had been at breakfast, in her lightest brown cotton breeches and shirt, with a crimson mourning band around her left arm. With her, in the red habit of a Fire dedicate, was her teacher, the smith-mage Frostpine, and his white-clad novice, Kirel.

Frostpine was black like Daja, his skin a few shades darker than hers. What hair he still possessed grew in a lion's mane around a shiny bald crown; his beard sprouted wildly from his chin. The sleeves of his habit were rolled up and secured with ties, revealing a pair of arms that rippled with wiry muscle, and big, strong hands. Kirel was half a head taller, white-skinned and blue-eyed, with long fair hair. Big-bellied and heavy-armed, he was the kind of young man who looked as if he belonged in armour, with a two-handed sword slung across his back. Before they had left the cottage, Daja had made sure Kirel was slathered with ointment to keep him from burning in the sun; a bottle of the stuff was in one of the baskets on the mule that the men had brought with them.

"Take off your shoes, and get on your hands and knees," Frostpine told her. "The more of you that's in contact with the ground, the better."

She thought he was crazy, but she obeyed, placing her sandals to the side. Out here, the sun beat down like a hammer. She was already sweating enough that the drops tickled as they rolled down her cheeks and back.

For a moment she thought she saw a fishing boat at the corner of her eye, off Crescent Island. When she took a quick glance, there was nothing to be seen.

"Remember what we did once, hiding lumps of different metal under cloth?" Frostpine asked.