High above the palace at Amissopolis, the raven wheeled, searching for a tall old woman with long, white hair. It carried a strip of bark and a coin on a string jangled around its foot. The raven sulked, as the message he carried stopped it from cawing at many things which merited cawing at, but tried to keep its focus on the promise of fish once its errand was finished. A country raven through and through, he had underestimated the number of old women with long white hair a city could contain. The raven had heard the palace had a disused rookery populated by easily bullied pigeons and began his descent when he spotted a tall woman, all in white, with long white hair, exactly as Trevor had shown him. Shuddering at the memory or Trevor’s strange, vibrating communication, he turned to follow her.

“Now explain again how this ain’t outright thievin’’,” Aga insisted. “‘Cause it feels an awful lot like thievin’’.”

“It isn’t ‘thieving’, as we are not thieves,” Ionia sniffed. “We are scavenging. A time-honored tradition practiced since the first society collapsed.”

“Society ain’t collapsed!” Aga scoffed. “Folks is just excited. They’re celebratin’.”

“Aga,” Ionia gestured at a circle of men swinging axes against the amaranthine oak, only to watch their blades bend or shatter. “Perhaps society in general has not collapsed, but crowds of angry men breaking things and…yes, here come the torches,” she sucked her teeth, “setting fires generally bodes poorly for a city’s health.”

“You done told Ingrid to stay out of it? Last thing they need’s an apothecary gettin’ involved.”

“Ingrid had much of the same instruction in medicine and magic as you, child. She doesn’t need telling. I did, however, suggest she visit her cousin in Lostro Hills for a few months.”

“‘S good advice,” Aga agreed. “But how come we’re scavenging in the palace? Ain’t we liable to get into some manner of trouble?”

“From who? Mark me, we have about a week before these,” Ionia searched for a civil tongue and found herself wanting “idiots realize the empire has fallen. We shall be on the road by then.”

“Abandon our own city?”

“Please. You’re from Sugar Mountain. And I,” Ionia sighed, looking very nearly her true age, ”am shot of this place.I am the closest thing left to law in the city. I would eat your teeth if the Kinship is not already at one another’s throats with in-fighting. Once these good citizens realize they cannot destroy the amaranthine oak which they believe to be Gregory’s remains, they will turn on the one who summoned it. Failing that, they set fire to the remaining vestiges of government.”

“An’ both of them’s you?”

“And you, likely, both as my apprentice and a non-human. The dwarves and elves have gone to ground, it would seem,” Ionia said, scanning the city streets below. “They’ve better memories than most humans, both.”

“Where will we go?”

“Presently, the kitchens. It’s too early for anyone to be looting foodstuffs.”

“Thought we was scavenging?” Aga said.

“We are scavenging,” Ionia said, pointing into the courtyard, where a burly man’s friends attempted to put out his flaming arm. “In three day’s time, they will loot.”

“An’ after the kitchens?” Aga asked, pausing to send a Frostwind spell onto the man’s burning clothes.

Ionia sighed.

“A sorceress must always clean her own messes,” she said. “I have created a rather complicated one, likely walking about on two legs.”

“You figure the tree swapped itself human?” Aga asked. “Never. A human equal to the Lich, even equal to an amaranthine oak, they’d have to be right magical, yeah?”

“Yes.”

Aga frowned.

“But we’ll take care of it?”

Ionia stalked ahead, silent.

The woman’s white robe made her easier to spot, flared out behind her like a flag. The tree-woman hadn’t been clear on how to approach her, though, the raven realized. He could feel the woman in white’s magic from twenty feet up--it was not beneath a magic handler to simply fry a messenger bird of unknown origins if they were too familiar, landing on a staff or shoulder. It’d happened to several of his friends’ cousins. He didn’t care for the way she walked, either; she had the air of someone raiding a rival flock’s eggs. But the tree-woman had brokered peace between his people and Trevor. Delivering a message was such a small favor. And there was the fish, besides.

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A crash sounded through the palace kitchens.

“Thought you said nobody else’d be after food yet!” Aga hissed.

Ionia held her hand up to quiet the girl and hefted her staff like a club. On the whole, Ionia didn’t like using her staff for magic when it worked quite well as a blunt instrument.

“Behind me,” Ionia ordered, turning the corner.

An ogre, bare as the day he was born, sat on the flagstones of the huge kitchen, grumbling. His left shoulder bore the Lich’s brand.

“Xagar Greengrass?” Ionia called, lowering her staff. “Son of Veridak and Zijal?”

The ogre startled, but did not turn his head. Despite his bulk, his hunched back put to mind a cornered rodent.

“Yes, my lady,” he answered in a soft, gentle voice. “The very same. Please excuse me for not rising, given my state of undress.”

“What’s goin’ on?” Aga whispered, craning her neck around the corner.

“An excellent question, boy,” Ionia said, casting a severe glare at Xagar.

“Well, my lady, put short, I am failing rather miserably at fashioning trousers. My only clothing is…military issue, which would exacerbate the already challenging situation of exiting the city. I erroneously believed the palace would possess very large flour sacks. My mother often fashioned trousers for me from flour sacks when I was a boy.”

“I’d wager there was quite a lot less of you then. But a practical solution, nonetheless,” Ionia said, her tone even, concealing her relief. Immune to and unable to wield magic, ogres were, on the whole, very practical. Ionia had hoped to find the boy she and Aga left Amissopolis. She was glad not to involve General Begatt or any of his soldiers in her search.

“Thank you, my lady,”

“Does that fella need trousers? I got some more safety pins on me. Could do up a pair that’d stay together long enough to get ‘em to Mozan’s.”

The tops of the the ogre’s ears blushed purple.

“I would be in your debt, my lady,” he said.

“I ain’t no lady,” Aga chuckled. “Just a friend, mayhap? Can’t imagine you’re plannin’ on stayin’ here.”

“Too true, my friend,” Xagar agreed.

Ionia scowled at Aga.

Aga shrugged.

“He’s a big fella. And you knew his folks,” she whispered. “If you wasn’t keen on helpin’ him, you’d not have warned him yesterday. Like as not, you’d just’ve walloped him on sight, if he was anything to fret on.”

Not for the first time, Ionia considered how inconvenient Aga’s perception could be.

“Boy, my ward and I will soon embark on a journey. I am an old woman and she is quite small.”

“My lady,” Xagar laughed. “You are the most accomplished sorceress in living memory. And not as old as all that, I’m sure.”

“Spare me your flattery,” Ionia snipped. “We have need of a guard and provisions.”

The miserable ogre’s posture straightened.

“Truly?”

“As my ward surmised, if I believed you to be anything less than helpful to us, I could have dispatched you where you sat,” Ionia grumbled. Watching the pitiful mountain of a young ogre cower at her tone, she felt a pang of regret. “Yes, truly. We’ve an arduous journey ahead of us.”

“A journey?” Xagar brightened. “Oh, my lady, I can direct you to several fine horses, and I am quite strong, myself. I would gladly bear whatever provisions you require.”

“And your requirements?

“Only safe passage, my lady,” the ogre said, his voice barely above a whisper. “And trousers, if it isn’t any trouble.

The raven had found his opportunity--the woman stood apart from her companions, a small elf and a great, hulking ogre who shuffled in odd, flimsy trousers, weighed down by innumerable sacks slung over his broad shoulders. The raven decided to land on the parapet, pass the note, offer the coin, have it refused, and be on his way. Yes. This was safest. Diving at top speed, nearly smashing his head into the next parapet, the raven skidded to a stop. Rattling in his throat, he caught the woman in white’s attention.

She turned, eyeing him with suspicion.

“You’re carrying a note,” she observed, arms crossed.

The raven muffled a caw, hopping forward.

“Anyone sensible would send a Sapient messenger, or, failing that, a pigeon. So I can only assume you’ve been sent by a magic handler.”

Fed up with the whole enterprise, the raven dropped the strip of bark and offered the woman the coin tied to his foot.

“Oh, and a Fetch! Ha! If that is a protection charm, I’m Queen Marilee. Keep it for yourself, Mr. Raven.”

The raven cawed at her, certain he would not receive his fish if the woman didn’t at least read the bark. He waited. Humans were like ravens in many ways; curiosity would get the better of her, he was sure.

With an annoyed grunt, the woman bent to pick up the message.

“Find Me. -S.” She read aloud. “No thank you, Mr. Raven,” the woman said, but he had already taken flight, hurrying back home, out of the noisy city, back to his fish and currants.

“That a note? From a bird?” Aga asked, joining Ionia at the parapet. Xagar trailed behind, shifting the load on his back to hitch up the flour sacks held together by Aga’s magicked pins, which, he supposed, were better than outright nudity.

“A spell. A trap, I’d hazard. Or it would’ve been, if I’d been fool enough to believe the coin that bird carried was a protection charm, instead of a Fetch.”

“Can I see?”

Ionia passed the girl the note.

“Least it’s short,” Aga said, falling silent. “Say, Ionia, what if the note’s the spell? Just readin’ it, like?”

“Doubtful,” Ionia said, snapping her fingers to burn the bark to ash. “Wayfinder notes fell out of fashion when I was scarcely older than you. Other than myself, I can think of perhaps two other magic handlers capable of one. One I am Shrouded from, the other I doubt remains in this realm.”

“Could be,” Aga said. “Ought we be worried?”

Ionia fell silent.

“Most probably a wrong address,” she said, her tone uncertain, but unambiguously closing the matter.