She eased her way over to the edge of the roof where the whistle had come from, and looked cautiously down.
Tam's sooty face looked up at her impudently, his teeth and the whites of his eyes startlingly bright in the moonlight. 'Empty room, lots uv scratches on the floor. Got a locked closet 'ere, mum. Be a mort uv them scratches there, goes to 'tother side uv door. Mebbe some blood, too.'
She didn't hesitate a moment longer; she lowered herself down over the edge of the roof, feeling for the window ledge with her feet as her arms screamed with outraged pain. Tam caught her ankles deftly and guided her feet to secure places; she caught hold of decorative woodwork and eased herself down to the window itself. She wanted to fling herself inside, but she didn't dare make that much noise_but she nearly wept with relief when she was safe on the floor inside.
The room itself was completely empty; not even a single stick of furniture, just as Tam said. The moonlight coming in the windows revealed that there were traces of painted diagrams on the wooden floor, though, and she guessed that it was sometimes used for magical ceremonies.
All the more reason to get him out of here!
She went straight to the closet door that Tam pointed to, and saw that what he had mistaken for blood was nothing of the sort. It was only spilled paint. The scratches could have come from anything_dragging a heavy piece of furniture to the closet for storage.
For a moment, her heart sank; then she heard the faint scraping of talons beyond the door, and the whimpering keen of a bird of prey, exhausted and near death.
'I'm gone, mum,' Tam declared, and slipped back up the chimney. That was fine; she'd already paid him for his help, and she had told him that she didn't want him around if things began to get dangerous. Since that had suited the boy just perfectly, the bargain had been easy to strike.
It had been much harder to persuade Maddy and her little army of partisans to stay behind. The loyalty of children ran deep, and somehow she had earned it. Only promising them that they could stand guard over the Chapel when she and T'fyrr were safely inside had kept most of them from following her and Tam over the rooftops.
She turned back toward the door, expecting a complicated lock_perhaps even a mage-made lock_and strained her senses for the music that magic-touched things held within them.
Nor was there any other sign of a lock, complicated or otherwise.
In stunned surprise, she tried the doorknob automatically.
It turned easily, and swung open without so much as a creak.
There wasn't much light, but there was enough for her to see the crumpled, feather-covered figure lying on the floor of the closet, head enveloped in a giant, scuffed hood.
A surge of grief and rage enveloped her, and she flung herself down on her knees beside him, fearing she was too late.
The head turned blindly toward her as she reached for him. 'I-ale?' came a whisper, a mangled version of her name as spoken from around the cruel device they had clamped on his beak. 'I_a_oo?'
'Its me; I've come to get you out of here.' The fastenings on the gag and the hood weren't even complicated; she had the former off and flung into a corner. The hood followed it, and she gathered him into her arms with her throat constricted with tears. He was so weak! He had no primaries at all, and few secondaries; he wouldn't have been able to fly out of here even if he'd had the strength.
He wrapped his own arms weakly around her and nodded, too spent to even ask her what in the world she thought she was doing. She reached both arms around behind his back and clasped her silver bracelet with her free hand under cover of the embrace, and concentrated hard for a moment.
With a silvery glissando, the Elven protections she wore slithered over him as well, wrapping him in a cocoon of power, identical to hers.
Now, just let the mages try something! They'd waste their time trying to crack
