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Fia tried to block out their terrified moans, which somehow echoed across the expanse, and sort through all the spells in her head. To bring everyone safely from the grip of the storm—and the little bird still trembling in her arms—before the wind carelessly released them and they plummeted with nothing below to break their fall.

Fly us, she thought, like the swiftest bird. As the whole of the spell washed through her—one she’d written last year when Elena had requested a balm for her daughter’s fear of heights—the air sparked gold at her fingertips. She willed her magic to guide her down, down, down, borne to the earth by imaginary wings. Fly us, oh, fly us to the ground.

Another dash of golden dust burst up from her fingertips, and every part of her unexpectedly prickled—her skull, her palms, the base of her spine. Something crept within her, something prodded. A tiny spot dotted the top of her hand, then a feather jabbed through the skin, small and downy and white. Immediately after, a scatter of pale feathers bloomed in the darkness of her hair.

A terrible shriek broke from her mouth as a feather unfurled from the arch of her cheekbone. She could feel the unpleasant poking, could see the down from the corner of her eye. It was dreadfully lovely, and oh, she was losing the entire thread of her spell. She might—no, she couldn’t—wholly transform!

And then, impossibly, a hand circled her wrist.

Penbrook.

“There now” was all he said, and Fia quieted.

He floated in front of her, his dark hair wild, his dark eyes wilder and churning with magic, needing no wings to fly. Deftly, gently, he lowered everyone the wind held suspended. They descended like leaves from a tree, then scattered into the warm comfort of their apartments and storefronts.

Silently, he lowered himself and Fia in a slow spiral, turning them against the storm’s wishes. His hand moved from her wrist to her cheek, brushing the feather like it was not only strange but beautiful too. And fleeting. It shed with the rest, tumbling through the air around them.

When their feet touched the ground, the wind he’d held at bay rushed against them again, and Penbrook whisked her back into the spellshop. The door slammed shut, and Fia crashed against him, as if she’d forgotten how to use her feet.

Face etched with worry, he grated out her name like a question.

“I’m all right,” she said, but every part of her was shaking. She stared down at the bird cradled in her arms, all his feathers ruffled, not sure what her eyes would show if she kept looking at Penbrook—but it would have been much too raw. “And Rin only seems a little dazed.”

“Rin?”

“Gwendolyn Blair’s songbird.” Fia stroked the top of his golden head, trying to comfort him, and she found the softness of his feathers had a calming effect on her too.

Or maybe that was Penbrook.

His hand hovered between them, as if he wasn’t entirely convinced the wind wouldn’t reach through the seam of the door and take her back. “I thought you were going to blow away.”

If not for you, she thought again, not at all wanting to imagine what might have happened to her if Penbrook hadn’t woken.

Swallowing the lump in her throat, she turned to the window, staring out as the wind howled, snapping branches from trees and churning detritus into the air. A lost scarf, a mitten, newssheets, and leaves, and the remnants of an oversized umbrella that might have been swept up from the café’s patio.

“Now, am I mistaken, or did you sprout wings?” Penbrook asked archly, plucking a single white barb from the sleeve of his coat and twirling it between his fingers.

Fia snatched for it, but he tucked the plume away. “I sprouted feathers.”

He flashed a rakish smile. “That’s a start.”

“And it would have been my end—my body splattered on the ground because I miscast a spell. This weather is wrong,” Fia said, fearing Annalise’s earlier words were true. That this storm was a curse like all the others that had descended on Trivoris. “This shouldn’t be happening, not when we have The Book of Ribs.”

Penbrook looked at her with half-lidded eyes, sleep heavy and guilt ridden. “Actually…”

“Please, no.” But Fia already knew what he was going to say as his hand absently brushed his pocket.

“The grimoire seems to have slipped away from me,” he said sheepishly, eyes flicking around the shop with a desperation he couldn’t hide.

“And what, it can cast its own spells now?” Fia’s voice went high, and Rin fluttered up from her arms.

“I wouldn’t think so.” Wind-rattled, the windows shook in their frames, saying otherwise. “But with magic, anything’s possible.”

Like Penbrook flying.

Fia shook her head. “Well, let’s find it!”

And in a mad dash, they tore through the shop, little Rin flitting around above their heads as they looked over every book on the shelf, pawed through every drawer, dug through every cabinet.