I slept on the floor in a pile of scratchy, inflexible blankets that my father said he’d found in a closet. When I woke up the next morning, early and stiff, I discovered they were actually tapestries. They were so faded and moth-eaten, and the tower room was so dim with the curtains drawn, I couldn’t make out what they were meant to depict.


    I rolled to my knees and peered cautiously over the edge of the bed. Sheshef lay there, still sound asleep. I didn’t know if this was normal or not. When did Winged Ones typically wake? Dawn, like songbirds? Later? Would she stay asleep until I opened the curtains, like birds with a blanket thrown over their birdcage?


    The comparison made me deeply uneasy, and vaguely despairing. That was how she was going to feel in my room; like she was trapped in a cage. Ribs broken, wings restrained, unable to fly. She’d be gone as soon as she could send word to her people to fetch her.


    And I had no right to be disappointed. It was the right thing to do.


    I lay back down and squeezed sad solace from my own devotion to doing the right thing. I had saved her—we had, my father and I—and would return her to where she belonged. What a good person I was.


    “Leo?”


    I bounded to my feet immediately, sending the tapestry I had pulled back up to my neck flumping heavily to the floor. “Sheshef! Are you—how do you feel?”


    There were dark circles under her eyes, and her face looked pinched. “Not good,” she replied bluntly. At the stricken look on my face, she hastened to add, “Not your fault. Thank you. Thank you. I…” She drifted off, then rubbed her eyes furiously, wincing a little at the motion, and simply repeated fiercely, “Thank you.”


    “You’re welcome.” I edged forward to the side of the bed. “What happened? You said there was a fight?”


    “Yes,” she replied gravely. “A big one.”


    “With who? Whom? Over what?”


    “With my brothers.”


    I stared at her, aghast. “You brothers did this to you?”


    Sheshef looked away and worried the edge of the blanket between her fingers. “Yes.”


    “Why?”


    “For bringing shame on the family.” Her face was expressionless, but I could hear the tremor in her voice.


    I couldn’t image what shame could possibly bring siblings to maim each other. Even if she were pregnant—which I had gathered from a myriad of unspoken insinuations at this point was the worst shame a girl could possibly bring her family—the customary response, as far as I was aware, lay in either confinement or banishment, or occasionally both at the same time.


    There was no way I was going to ask her if she was pregnant.


    I coughed a little, turning red, and changed the subject. “Are you hungry?”


    She turned back to me eagerly. “Yes. Very.”


    “D’you want eggs?”


    “Yes please.”


    “How do you like them?”


    She stared at me blankly. “I do like them,” she said after a moment, “very much.”


    “No, I mean—scrambled? Boiled?”


    Her eyes widened briefly before she schooled her face. “You cook your eggs.”


    “Oh. Um. Yes.” I rubbed my nose. “You normally eat them raw?”


    “Yes.”


    “Oh, well that’s easy then.” I turned. “I’ll be back soon.”


    “Wait.”


    I turned back. Her dark eyes were wide once again. “Who knows I am here?”


    “Just me and my father.”


    “You will not tell anyone else?”


    “Uh, it might be a bit hard to keep the servants from finding out…” I petered out at the stricken expression on her face. “Why?”


    “They can’t know I am here,” she said fiercely.


    “Who? Your brothers?”


    “My brothers. My flock.” She shook her head. “None of them. They must think I am dead.”


    “Dead!”


    “Yes.”


    “What did you do?” I blurted. “Did you kill someone?”Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.


    Sheshef looked down at the bed again. It was hard to tell in the dim light, but it looked like she was flushing. “They found out I kissed you.”


    “What?” My yelp was shrill enough that I sounded for a moment like I was no older than when we’d first met. “But—that—we didn’t—that was months ago!” For some reason, this was the objection that made it out in its entirety. “How did they even find out?”


    “I told them.”


    I was now so confused, I felt lightheaded. “Why?”


    Her flush was unequivocal, even in the dimness. “I lost my temper.”


    “They tried to kill you because you kissed me?”


    “It is forbidden.”


    I tried to square a culture that taught its children Romanci from schoolbooks, and one that would kill over a kiss, and failed.


    “How did my mother even come to be born?” I mused fretfully.


    “Her mother flew away.”


    “You knew my mother’s mother?” I wasn’t thinking clearly.


    “No,” she replied patiently, “I wasn’t born yet. But there are stories. She came from another flock, far away, seeking sanctuary. But my flock would not have her either. She was tainted with shame. She was too heavy with egg to keep flying, though, so she stayed here, and lived alone, outside our eyrie. A few of the women—my mother—pitied her, and brought her things. Food, and medicine. Even paper sometimes. They told her to fledge the babe. They told her it is not a sin. But she would not. She gave your mother to your grandfather.”


    “Why?” I breathed.


    Sheshef shrugged, then winced. “She never said.”


    “Is…” I swallowed. “Does she still live here?”


    “No. She flew on, to the south.”


    I swallowed again; my throat had gone dry. “What was her name?”


    “I don’t know.” Sheshef’s nictitating membranes slid across her eyes. “My flock called her ‘Kruk.’”


    “What does that mean?” I asked, feeling my heart sink preemptively.


    “It is not a nice word,” Sheshef said simply.


    I stood there, limp with revelation, watching motes of dust dance in the blade of light that had snuck through a gap in the curtains. My reverie was only interrupted by a small gurgling noise; Sheshef’s stomach.


    “Eggs,” I said tonelessly. “I’ll get you eggs. One minute.”


    It was early enough that I beat the maids to the henhouse. I gathered five eggs in my shirt—I had no idea if that was a reasonable number or not—and hurried back before anyone could see me. Sheshef took them eagerly, and consumed them all in quick succession in a practiced maneuver, so fast I couldn’t quite see how she managed to do it as neatly as she did. There were so many questions welling inside me, I didn’t know where to start. So I simply threw the eggshells into the fire and gave her water.


    “Father says it will take you at least six weeks to heal,” I said once she had finished.


    Her shoulders slumped, taking her wings with them. “I know,” she said, and for the first time, she sounded truly miserable. Not when she said her brothers had tried to kill her; when she admitted she was temporarily barred from flight.


    “Do you really want to stay here for six weeks?” I asked haltingly. “In my room?”


    Sheshef’s misery compounded. “No.”


    “Um.” I rubbed the back of my head. “What do you want to do, then?”


    “Stay safe.” She moved as though to draw her legs to her chest, but then thought better of it, and simply sat there. “And I think I have to stay here to stay safe. If… if you will let me.” She turned her whiteless eyes to me, imploring. Her tawny hair draped over her shoulders and chest, tangling with the dove-gray down at her back.


    I would have given her the entire villa right then and there.


    “I’ll ask my father.”


    ??


    “No.”


    “But—!”


    “Absolutely not.”


    “Well then where is she supposed to go?” I cried. “They’ll kill her!”


    “I don’t think they would actually go that far.” My father turned a screwdriver over in his fingers; I had interrupted him as he was adjusting a lens housing in the Observation Tower. “Typically, once the beating has been administered, and everyone has had a chance to calm down—a few days, at most—the chastised will return to the flock, and be welcomed back more or less immediately.”


    “How often do they do this sort of thing?”


    Father sighed. “I don’t know exactly. Once every few years, at least. It’s atypical for one so young to be the target, but it’s not unheard of.”


    I bit my lip. “She said they would kill her.”


    “At the risk of sounding dreadfully callous,” he replied, “and patronizing besides, the phenomenon of melodramatic twelve-year-old girls is not limited to mankind.”


    I glared at him. He turned back to the lens housing, glasses flashing.


    “They broke her ribs,” I insisted stubbornly. “Mid-air. Isn’t that lethal?”


    “Are you sure?” he murmured.


    I remembered the sickening crunch when she’d come hurtling through the window and landed on my floor, and balled up my fist. I couldn’t be sure. I wanted to hit something.


    “So we just kick her out?” I demanded. “Flag down her barbarian brothers and have them beat her some more when they come to collect her?”


    “Of course not,” Father replied. “But she can’t stay in your room. It’s not proper by any standards. Especially not without clothes.”


    “She’s Winged,” I muttered, going red. I had been doing an admirable job of ignoring this fact until he brought it up. “It’s different. They don’t wear clothes.”


    “Not different enough. No naked girls in your room until you are at least…” Father paused to knock a slip-ring back into place with a sharp rap of the housing on the benchtop. “...sixteen.”


    “So what then?”


    “She can stay here.” He gestured vaguely with the screwdriver.


    “The Observation Tower?”


    “Yes. Anywhere but the top floor.”


    It was, I was forced to admit, a good solution. Servants came into my room on a daily basis, unless I chose to shut them out, to change the bedding or set the fire. But nobody came in here—only my father, myself, and the Winged Ones who brought their worship to the telescopes. And for that, they stayed on the top floor.


    “All right,” I replied, mollified. “When?”


    “Tonight.” He was back to working on extracting a tiny screw. “I’ll tell everyone you’re ill. Stay with her in your room till then.”


    I traipsed back across the courtyard, making sure to adopt an air of malaise as I went for the benefit of all who saw me. It was hard; in truth, I could barely contain my excitement. I knew exactly what I wanted to do.


    As soon as I was out of sight, I raced up the stairs to my room, remembering only at the last moment not to burst through in my haste and startle the patient within. Instead, I opened the door softly and slipped inside, closing and bolting it again behind me.


    “Sheshef,” I said, a smile growing on my face, “do you want to finish the lockpicking lesson?”