Varna's Crow Moon festivals were always a delight, but the first one after Dinah's fall was particularly extravagant. Niccola could only wonder why—whether it was the joy of a Talakova-loving people able to visit the forest again without fear, the return of both their royals, or both factors combined. Either way, the candle lanterns that night turned the streets of the lower realm into rivers of floating lights. Their glow illuminated people dressed in their finest outfits, while musicians in costumes of birds and gloam-cats added texture to the crowd. Niccola spotted at least two dancers in Talak regalia. These slunk through the streets with unnatural gaits, their bodies painted a silver-white eerily similar to that of the Talaks themselves. Music, singing, and a banquet of food smells steeped the chilly air.

"What's that one?" said Isaiah, head lifted and smile alight. A haunting flute joined the already multi-layered soundscape.

"That's a nightbird-caller," said Phoebe. "It's my favorite! Niccola, who's playing? Can you see?"

Niccola stood up on her tiptoes and strained to catch a view over the crowd. "I think that's Moses from down along the orchard row. He's really been practicing, wow."

"And he was already so good before, too. Can we follow him? The main paths are going to be crowded anyway; we can take a detour."

Niccola tugged Isaiah's hand. "What do you think?"

"Doesn't matter to me. I don't even know the whole city layout yet, let alone the forest paths."

"Adventure it is."

They scampered through the crowd after the flutist. The roads were packed, and Niccola tried and failed not to bump people with the cage she carried. Nobody minded, of course. Traditional greetings in both human and Talak languages rang through the crowd as people met—intentionally or unintentionally—talked, and made their way down towards the Talakova's edge. Lakes of lantern-light pooled among the massive, ancient trees. These gatherings funneled into ribbons as people wove deeper into the forest, along ancient paths to the groves where their ancestors lay.

"Don't drop the food," warned Niccola as Phoebe made a particularly artful maneuver around a stack of crates.

"I'm fine. You never trust me, and you drop things all the time."

"I do not—"

Isaiah "coughed" the words "pillow stack of doom" on her other side.

Niccola rounded on him. "I made it up two floors with that stack before it went down, I will have you know."

"And then we got hit with pillows two floors down," said Phoebe with a wicked grin.

"You two have no faith."

"We have lots of faith," said Isaiah. "Just in select areas."

"That don't involve carrying thirteen pillows up three flights of stairs," added Phoebe, nodding sagely.

"I'm feeling ganged up on."

"You could ask Pekea," said Isaiah. The dragon perked up on his shoulder. "She loved your pillow stack. Especially all over the ground."

"That's it; I am taking all your snacks, and I'm not telling you the way to the kitchen."

"I'll take you there," said Phoebe promptly. She and Isaiah exchanged a conspiratorial handshake.

Niccola had other threats, but none worth deploying. Half the things she might leave him out of were no fun alone, and she really would need his help raiding the kitchen. He'd proven exceptional at charming the cooks into giving them treats, or charming their way out of trouble if they ever got caught. Pekea helped with visible glee. And for all the pranks that awaited Niccola at her sister and fiancé's hands, it was good to see Phoebe returning to normal life again. Niccola would often go looking for her or Isaiah only to find them together—making crafts, petting crow chicks in the palace rookeries, or simply sitting on the stairs or galleries or some other weird part of the palace, chatting for hours on end. Phoebe eased up a lot around Isaiah. And it went both ways. Perks of Varna's distance from the Calisian puppet rulers and all the stress they entailed.

After all the stress of negotiations and political logistics, it had been almost surreal to return to Varna. The royal entourage was greeted by parades in the streets all the way to the palace. Phoebe sobbed and waved to the crowds while Niccola lurked in the carriage, until Isaiah forced her too to make an appearance. She did not believe the cheering was as much for her as for Phoebe, but anyone upset to see her would just have to deal with it. Just as they would have to deal with Isaiah's addition to the royal family. Many nobles had been cagey about him thus far. It helped, at least, that he and Niccola had near-singlehandedly brought down Dinah just weeks before. Faced with a choice between a Calisian prince and a desperate necromantic, even Varna could be convinced.

The flutist was moving again. Niccola led the way after him, weaving to a clearer side of the street so she and Isaiah could link arms. It was like this that they passed the rest of the journey down to the Talakova's edge. Stepping beneath the trees only enhanced the festival atmosphere. Music mingled with the sounds of the forest: nightbirds, a breeze in the canopy, and the crunch of hundreds of footsteps through carpets of leaves. Smells of food and autumn intermingled. Soft with lantern-light, the forest harbored threads of singing both mysterious and achingly familiar, somehow at home in a way no Crow Moon activities in Calis had ever been.

Niccola drew a deep breath as she tipped her head back, smiling at the sky. With all but a few leaves of the canopy cast groundward, stars sparkled like frost above the trees. Niccola remembered a sky just like this from the night of Isaiah's courtship ball. She'd snuck through the palace gardens before the black moon rose, too distracted at the time to notice the night's beauty. The memory remained oddly clear in hindsight. It seemed so long ago.

Isaiah and Phoebe were chattering again. Niccola let them, and turned her attention back to the Talakova. Wingbeats thumped overhead. Most crows were high in the trees tonight, too smart to risk their lives among the offerings being released to hungry Talaks on the forest floor. But this one did not seem afraid. Niccola called out to it in its own language. "Are you lost, friend?"

It was a young one, curious about the goings-on of this great gathering of humans. Niccola informed it of the danger, and received an avid admiration of the forest's sparkles in return. She could not resist a smile. They kept up some semblance of a conversation all the way to the royal gravesite, where Niccola had the last word. "If you are in need of a place with food and warmth for the winter, fly to the top of the hill, to the big stone building. Your kin there can show you the way. We would be happy to get to know you better."

The crow cawed an affirmative and flew off. Whether or not it chose to visit the palace rookeries, Niccola had made a new friend tonight. There was something powerful in tapping into the deep, living vein of Varnic family tradition. This was how they'd made their way: not with force, but with friendship, speaking to each crow as an individual and asking, not coercing them to cooperate. In just the weeks since Phoebe had been rescued, she'd already taught Niccola so much about this tradition. And with the palace libraries groaning under generations of accumulated knowledge on the matter, there was so much left to learn.

There was also something reassuring about it for another reason. Gone were the days when Niccola would be ridiculed in the street for not carrying her family's magic. Part of her wished she'd come to this peace without the sacrifice of joining the magic line, but that wasn't a matter she wanted to dwell on. Not when there was nothing she could do about it. And so she focused on the present again, breathing in the smells and sounds and touch of the forest, the laughter and voices of Isaiah and Phoebe beside her, the warmth of Isaiah's gloved hand, and the soft heartbeat of crows' voices in the trees above. She belonged here now, as her tenth Crow Moon with magic in her veins rose midnight-black over the Talakova sky. 

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