One of the great pleasures of something like normalcy being restored between them was that Gouvernail was no longer lapsing into abrupt, self-conscious silence when by some internal timer he deemed that he was speaking too much.

She was listening with unfeigned pleasure to him as she leaned against the ramparts, her enjoyment only slightly dampened by the still-unformed wisp bouncing around in restless attempts to divert her attention from him or, in fact, anything that was not itself. She persuaded it to something like stillness by lightly cupping her hand around it on the stone, as one might gently capture a moth.

They were watching, through a gap in the trees below, a fairly large group of rabbits ranging at leisure on a patch of green, while he expanded on some of the finer points of the falconry he had once used to bring in such creatures from time to time, although his preference was for the ease of a trap or the even greater ease of a hutch - falconry being a subject on which Elaine’s interest, while sincere and invested, had been fed only by a little bit of desultory reading and one modern-day demonstration at a Renaissance Faire.

He answered her animated questions about what birds he had flown and seen flown, and what prey they had taken down, while the wisp occasionally attempted to scoot out from under her palm and into the conversation.

“A heron?” she repeated, faintly incredulous. “With what? An eagle, surely.”

“No. You would be surprised, I believe, by what a determined gyrfalcon can bring down.”

“Was it yours?”

“No. I was no more fit to fly such a thing than able to afford its purchase or its upkeep,” he said drily.

“I read an article recently,” she said, “that the most expensive bird ever had just sold at an auction. And I’m pretty sure it was one of those, so I guess that never changed. White. Pretty,” she added, “although I’m not -”

The wisp, with sudden vigor, emerged from beneath her neglected hand with an inexplicable air of exasperation, and rather than darting towards her face to demand attention it instead abruptly disappeared into the trees, from which there emerged a faint popping sound, as of a very small, very contained explosion.

“Oh my god,” she said, leaning out in delight, having already explained to Gouvernail the mysterious mechanics of the wisp, as well as she understood them. “I have to go get it. I wonder what’s in there. I hope it’s a seal. Maybe a light blue one.”

She turned to hurry down the stairs, but his ghostly hand reached out in a futile attempt to arrest her. It might have been a cause for pain, some weeks before, but there was less torment, now, in his instinctive and useless motions to touch her. It served to make her pause, however, and follow his eyes down to the clearing, where the rabbits had abruptly scattered, and where, as she looked, a horrible scream emanated, which made her hair stand on end and froze her in instinctive terror. It ended nearly as abruptly as it began, and a few seconds later there was an ominous sense of frantic motion in the branches.

A distant shape broke from the trees, circling out of sight, and they stood in mute astonishment, side by side, her arm still out to receive the stilling hand that could not touch her, until - a moment later - they were both startled by something falling with a thud at their feet - she into dancing back several steps and he into instinctively reaching for the weapon that was not there.

He recovered his composure first, and abruptly turned away - probably to avoid letting her see the fact that he was fighting back a laugh at the sight of her looking aghast at the dead, bloodied bunny at her feet, frozen in astonished disgust.

Her arm sagged under the sudden weight of a very large and majestic bird coming to a violent landing on it, its talons not nearly gentle enough as it preened with an unmistakable aura of smugness.

“My condolences,” he said, walking away a few steps and lifting his arm to his mouth, even though she could hear the suppressed laughter in his voice anyway. “It does not appear that it was a seal.”

She looked at the bird on her arm, which might have been an exciting development had she not been anticipating a pastel Lisa Frank manta ray or something similar.

“You were supposed to be cute!” she exploded. The bird, unmoved, calmly picked a bit of bunny fur from its talons, its other foot digging into her arm. “You were supposed to be - like - a tiny whale or something! You were supposed to be sparkly! You weren’t supposed to drop dead rabbits on my head!”

“It wasn’t quite on your head, Lady,” observed Gouvernail from a safe distance, with an air of mild reprimand, as if forced to defend the wisp’s honor.

“I didn’t ask for you to chime in!” she snapped, feeling an inexplicable sense of panic. She gave her arm a shake as if to dislodge its unexpected burden, which only resulted in a tighter grip from the falcon’s talons. She opted, instead, to glare at it, and it cocked its head and fixed her with a beady eye that was - at least, she was forced to grudgingly concede - a lovely shade of light blue. And then, after a pause: “I can tell you’re dying to say something, so you might as well,” she said loftily.

“I was only going to observe that it suits you,” he said, still mildly.

“I know a backhanded compliment when I hear one, you passive aggressive a*****e,” she said, and he was forced to walk off a few more steps with his back still studiously turned.

Still, maybe he wasn’t wrong. The jealous ferocity in the thing’s eye wasn’t entirely unfitting. Nor was - if she was being honest - the fact that it was a queen’s bird, draped with the marks of a queen’s ermine on its snowy feathers. It might not be a lilac manatee or even a beautiful jellyfish, but it wasn’t without its appeal.

“Well,” she said at last, sounding only mildly disgruntled. “I guess I can’t do anything about it.” She gave her arm another experimental loft, and the gyrfalcon - apparently appeased by being somewhat accepted - took flight again. She stood to watch it gliding over the trees, joined, after a moment, by Gouvernail, who had trained his face back to its usual sober gravity.

“Forgive me for speaking out of turn during your time of distress,” he said. It was said with an air of deep humility, but she had seen his sincere humility, and identified this immediately for the provoking mockery that he wanted her to see.

“No,” she said stubbornly. “She suits you more than me right now, you smug b*****d,” she added, and pretended not to notice the smile he turned away from her. “I guess,” she added, wrinkling her nose in disgust as she turned towards the rabbit carcass, “that I’d better call up Pal. Best not to let it go to waste.”

He paused a moment longer, watching the pale shape wheeling over the trees before turning. And she knew, somehow, from a frisson in the pause that followed, that he had been about to step in front of her to attend to an unpleasant duty before it could cause her to dirty her hands. But his inability to do it - and her silently moving ahead of him - did not have quite the sting in it that it once had, or if it did, it was dulled by what had gone ahead of it this time.

He did, however, reach out to gently make as if to touch her arm, where the bird’s talons had left angry red welts. She withdrew it, shaking her head.

“I’ll invest in a good leather glove until I can persuade her not to do that unless I’m powered up,” she said. “It’s like having a cat. I guess she can’t help it if she has claws, so I’ll just have to get used to it.”

She no sooner had said it than the realization dawned on her, and she glanced at him, expecting to see pain and seeing only that small, inward smile.

“Shut up,” she said, and he did laugh, this time, turning away a little too late.