The sound that woke Ysabet was too small to belong to the quarry.
Tap. A pause. Another tap, closer to the window.
She lay with one arm outside the blanket and waited for the scrape of a mouse in its box. Instead a red fruit struck the sill. Gevren had hung a damaged branch there for the kitchen bird to smell. Its lowest shell now moved without any wind.
Ysabet sat up.
A fine pale line ran down the fruit. She reached for the lamp, thought better of it, and opened the shutter to the gray dawn. The line widened. A beak appeared, withdrew, and came back with a piece of red rind on its tip.
“Chaska,” she whispered.
The courier slept under the other window. She made an unhelpful sound.
“Bird.”
