Summer still poured over the richer parts of Calis during the daytime, but with the onset of night, the air even here thickened with the chill of autumn. Niccola's breath made clouds as she closed the door softly behind her. Lady Selah and the sisters would not come looking for her. Lady Selah slept like death, and the sisters shared a further superstition that kept them locked in their rooms come nightfall: that Talaks left the forests by moonlight in search of more than prey. The Talaks' only interest was prey.

The thinning moon cast just enough light to show the way as Niccola hugged the shadows to the end of the front path. The sun was long gone, but people were still in the street. Servants rounded up chickens from the downhill districts, workers made their way home for the night, and a member of the City Guard sauntered by on patrol. Niccola slipped out among them. After moons of waiting, there was something freeing about action. No Bel Ilan could stop her as she strode down towards the Lowlands. What she was doing could get her fired if they knew, but they didn't have to know.

The street emptied rapidly as Niccola approached the lowlands. Finding even the night-workers absent, Niccola could not help but wonder what this response would have been like had this situation taken place back home. Varna fearing the Talakova would be like a child fearing their own shadow. Calis was much less tied to the forest for its livelihood, and it showed. Niccola wondered whether the Calisian wayfinders, basketmakers, and foragers felt the same way as the general population. It was hard to imagine any barrower spending time up close and personal with the forest and still coming away afraid, but she had learned plenty enough about Calis since crossing its border to doubt her own assumption on that.

By the time she reached the market square, the emptiness of the streets had become eerie. Niccola retreated to the shadows as the Talakova loomed ahead. It always had a presence, but in the chill darkness under a crescent moon, that presence spread like the night itself was alive. The dirt road began to disintegrate into loam and underbrush. A hundred tiny paths wound through the forest's edge, beaten by generations of Calisian citizens who visited the Talakova on Crow Moons, if not more often.

Niccola paused. Lifting a hand, she turned it over in the moonlight. Silver kissed her dark skin. It reflected back just like it ought to, giving no hint yet of the timeline she was beholden to. Niccola held her fingers up to silhouette them instead, then dropped them. It would do her no good to be seen like this if someone happened to peek out their window up the road. With a final glance at the moon, she stepped into the soft darkness that opened up to welcome her into the Talakova.

Even seven moons after becoming a barrower, it was strange to walk these paths without an entry offering. Niccola freed her hair and shook it out. Some secret part of her hoped the motes of light that twinkled in the shadows would decorate it like they once had her sister's. It was a childish wish, perhaps, but one she had never shaken.

The underbrush of the forest's edge opened up among the trees. The Talakova looked little more than a moon's travel across from the outside, but its depth was unknown. Those who dared probe its reaches said it simply kept going, ever deeper and darker, its trees ever taller, its inhabitants wilder. Those who returned spoke of endless night beyond reach of the sun: of strange lights illuminating a forest floor that crawled with foreign life forms; of diredeer the height of trees, and trees the height of the sky.

Those explorers who returned did so moons, years, and even decades after their departure, haggard and bewildered as they stepped from the forest. Many found that everyone they loved had aged and died. The time distortion of the Talakova was well-known, and intensified the deeper a person went. Yet that knowledge did little to soften stories like those of Jasper of Silver Creek, the explorer who had brought back much of what was known about the deep Talakova today. She had returned to find her granddaughter grown to an elderly woman, the last remaining member of her lineage.

A tingle ran through Niccola's fingertips and up her arms, then into her chest, where it nested and began to spread throughout her body. Trees and plants sharpened in the not-darkness around her. She could see them as if they and everything else glowed faintly, a night vision her sister had always spoken of when they were children. Niccola gloried in it. Varnic legends said the Talaks wove it into their contracts with the very first barrowers after realizing humans needed fire to see in the dark. Talaks hated fire.

The ground crunched beneath her feet, soft with summer, but already crisp with the first fallen leaves. Somewhere in here was whatever beast or Talak had taken to plucking citizens into oblivion on their daily ventures, but none of that stalled Niccola's footsteps. Little differed here from her innumerable memories of stepping into the Talakova's night-shade with her family as a child, coming to visit their grandmother's grave amongst the trees every night the Crow Moon rose. Her mother and sister would carry the birdcages with their Crow Moon offerings, unless Niccola offered to carry Phoebe's for her. Her sister was almost always grateful.

Niccola would not soon forget the way Phoebe's dark eyes shone in the darkness, alive with the magic of the forest. Or the way she gasped with wonder at every little thing: the glitter of night-insects, the tracks of unknown animals, the soft voices of crows. They would investigate rocks and logs and bushes together. Phoebe dragged her sister to each of these, and though Niccola pretended to only put up with it at first, she would inevitably find herself drawn in by her sister's wonder. The forest held layers of magic she would never have uncovered on her own.

That image of Phoebe was still trapped in her mind's eye like a painting. Of her little sister calling back to her from a crouched position beside a bush at the edge of the path, an excited smile etched on her face. The motes of light that danced in the forest dotted her white-blotched skin like freckles. They also caught in her hair, which was done up in the ornate, braided style traditional to generations of their family. Phoebe wore it beautifully. Her crown of braids interwoven with soft crow feathers seemed to attract the motes of light, so that by the time they reached the family gravesite, everything about her sparkled.

Niccola remembered wondering whether she would ever look so worthy of the family name.

Back in the present forest, she turned her gaze to the canopy. The rustle of wings heralded night-crows roosted in the trees, many watching, even following her. Niccola's magic held her tiredness at bay as it pulsed in her chest. She threw back her head. The language of the crows poured out of her like a mother tongue she had spent half a lifetime never knowing.

"I need your help. Come to me."

She did not need to see the crows to call them, nor for them to speak back. Their soft croaks whispered meaning into her thoughts, ancient and sibilant. Their wings stirred the night. They swept closer, down the trees until their eyes glittered in the darkness. The back of Niccola's neck prickled. The first Talak had just appeared. Drawn by her scent, it drifted closer, invisible, its presence a feeling like static in Niccola's consciousness. She ignored it. It would not touch a barrower, despite the hunger she could feel from it. With the moon starved to the width of a crow's feather, all the Talaks were hungry.

The Talak's presence made the crows wary. "Come closer," entreated Niccola, when some began to waver on the lowest branches. Her dark-sight was still not enough to see if any bore her sister's markings.

A barrower who failed to make their Crow Moon offerings three moons in a row "lapsed"—lost their human mind and turned into a crow. It was easier than murder, for there was no body to hide. If Phoebe's kidnapper wanted to be rid of her, all they would have to do was bar her from the forest for those three moons. It had now been seven since she'd disappeared. Yet lapsed barrowers carried some things with them in their feathered form. Birthmarks remained, as did scars and deformations, disabilities, and even a trace of their human personality. The distinctive white that had patched Phoebe's skin ever since she was a child would be one of those things.

The crows drew closer as Niccola pleaded and cajoled them. None had white among their feathers.

A second Talak's presence added its buzz to her thoughts. Then a third. They made an undercurrent of white noise beneath the crows' voices, and began to drown out the quieter of those. They were pushy in this realm. Or perhaps that was just because Niccola was here alone. She would be easy prey if not for her barrower status, though that sent a different, unsettling thought through her. If Phoebe had lapsed, Niccola would be the last in their magic line. Killing her would return that magic to the forest and the Talaks, who were known for never taking less where they could take more, and who were bound by little more than Niccola's own contract. A contract she had not yet fulfilled.

She should finish what she came to do. With a last scan for white feathers, Niccola switched to her true request, detailing what she needed from the crows who wished to help her, and when, and how. It grated on her to be so easily spooked, but when the Talaks' presences became too numerous to count, she wrapped things up and turned away. The pressure of the darkness pressed like a hand to her back all the way up the trail. The Talaks only retreated when she could see stars between the trees once more.

The moon had sped across the night. Hoping she had not lost too much time to the distortion, Niccola hastened back through the lowlands. She checked over her shoulder when she reached the manor row. The crow she had commanded to follow her lurked like a shadow not far behind, its wingbeats soft as feathers against the sky.