Free The Shining City by Kate Forsyth

Witches did not eat the flesh of any animal, nor cheese that had been fermented with the juices of an animal‟s digestive system, nor eggs that had been fertilized. Skipping class would be frowned upon, but doing so in order to go hawking would be punished by suspension and perhaps even expulsion.
    Owein rolled his eyes at her. “Dinna be such a muffin-faced prig, Olwynne. I‟ve been good all winter. Ye canna expect me to stay at school and work when the weather‟s finally warming up!”
    Olwynne wondered fleetingly how her brother could say he had been good all winter so sincerely when she knew for a certainty that he had regularly skipped school to go tobogganing, ice skating, and hunting with his hounds, not to mention he‟d smuggled a greased pig into the dining room one day and released all the pigeons from the loft another day. She also harbored a very strong suspicion that it had been her brother who had strung Fat Drusa‟s drawers up the flagpole on Hogmanay. Luckily the very large sorceress was also very good-humored, else Owein might have found himself expelled.
    “Anyway, dinna ye want to hear my news? Guess what we saw when we were in the mews. Go on, Olwynne, guess!”
    “A falcon,” Olwynne said sourly.
    “Go on, muffin face! Try, at least. Some witch ye are, if ye canna even read your own brother‟s mind.”
    Olwynne looked at him in exasperation. She knew very well that, despite all Owein‟s madcap tricks and tomfoolery, he had had some of the Craft hammered into his head and was quite capable of shielding his mind from her.
    “Dai-dein?” she said hopefully. Her father had little patience with Owein‟s wildness and would have sent him back to school with a flea in his ear.
    “No! We saw a winged horse, a black one, and a real beauty. A girl was riding it, a prisoner o‟
    some sort. Her hands were bound and she was on a lead rein. They tried to bring her in and she fought them off. Ye should‟ve seen her! She broke Lyndon‟s nose, and her horse kicked Kenneth in the chest and stove all his ribs in. It was grand! Then the captain threw a rope around her shoulders and brought her down, and the mare took off up into the sky. Ye should‟ve seen it go!
    What I wouldna give for a horse like that!”
    “A black winged horse,” Olwynne echoed. A peculiar hollowness in her stomach made her voice come out too high.
    Owein did not notice.
    “Aye, with two long blue horns. Reynard had his face opened by one o‟ them. He was lucky no‟
    to lose his eye. It was great sport, seeing the Blue Guards routed by a skinny slip o‟ a girl and a horse! Though I tell ye what.” His voice sobered. “Captain Dillon was no‟ at all pleased. I feel sorry for the girl. Lewen says—”
    “Lewen?”
    “Och, aye, didna I say? It was Lewen who brought her in.”
    “Lewen‟s here?” Olwynne jumped to her feet.
    “Aye, he‟s in his room. I‟ve just come from there. That‟s why I‟m here: he wants to see ye.”
    “Me?” Olwynne felt her cheeks heating and put up a distracted hand to her hair, which was braided back tightly. She gave it a jerk and wished she dared loosen it from its ribbon. She knew it was her only real beauty, but if she shook it out, Owein would jeer at her and wonder aloud what she was doing, and she would be reprimanded by any witch who saw her.
    “Aye, he‟s in a real state. Seems he‟s fallen head over heels for this girl, and he‟s afraid—”
    Olwynne spun around to face her brother. “He‟s what?”
    “Fallen for this girl,” Owein said impatiently. “Hard, by the looks o‟ it. Poor auld fellow.
    Anyway, he needs our help. He wants to appeal to Dai-dein , try to have her freed. The auld man‟s got a soft spot for Lewen, ye ken, ‟cause o‟ his dai , but things look pretty black for her.
    I‟m no‟ sure if I got the story straight or no‟, but apparently she killed a Yeoman.” Owein‟s voice hardened with indignation. “By all rights she should hang, and by the