Free A Sliver of Stardust by Marissa Burt Page B

numb as the falcon found an airstream and began to glide. The roar of wind in her ears soon overtook the muffled rhythmic thump of wings. The falcon skimmed the countryside, coasting above silvery trails of water and up over a mountain, and then beyond to the wide expanse of the sea.
    Wren’s hands were beginning to cramp from their death grip around Mary’s middle. She had been so fixated on not falling off that the glimmering flecks surrounded her for some time before she recognized that they were flying in a glowing cloud. In front of her, Mary was singing a rhyme and weaving the stardust so that webs of light swirled around them.
    Wren couldn’t be sure how long they stayed like that, wrapped in a great trail of twinkling light, but she sensed the warmth fading. Something in her fought the cold, wanted to draw more of the sensation into herself, but she let it go. She felt the chill of the night air, and the dust evaporated enough that she saw the falcon’s feathers again, and beyond the falcon, a shadowedmountain coming closer and closer, impossibly fast, and she yelled that they were crashing, but the bird plummeted onward, at the last moment swooping onto a rocky ledge, and they were back on the ground once more.
    Or at least near the ground. The falcon had landed on a rough ledge that jutted out of the mountainside, forming a rocky grotto that flickered in the light of two torches wedged between stones. Jack had arrived first, and he was sliding easily off his falcon. Mary tugged on Wren’s shoulder, and Wren half fell, half flopped down the side of the bird after her. Her legs wobbled, and her heart raced wild.
    â€œHere I come!” Simon yelled from behind her. She whirled around to see Simon’s bird plummeting toward them, diving in to land nearby, the rush of its wings blowing Wren off-balance. Simon easily dismounted, giving his falcon’s side a friendly pat. Beyond him, Wren could see a valley sprawling below them, a shimmering river snaking its way through the shadows and emptying into a choppy ocean that stretched off into the distance. Overhead, the stars shone brightly, dimmed only by the swirls of turquoise and yellow that remained from the aurora. The broad outcropping theyhad landed on led inward to a natural cavern, but the shadowed cliff face itself stretched up and out of sight, marked only by the twinkling lights of what might be other falcon-landing ledges and the few stone stairways that connected them.
    â€œWell done, Wren and Simon.” Mary scooped some kind of food for her falcon from a barrel near the wall. She had returned her bird to regular size, and Wren saw that while she’d been stargazing, the boys had been busy doing the same.
    Wren joined them in time to watch Mary weave a pinch of stardust with a hurried whispered rhyme. The next moment she held up her palm, and a glowing ball of light cast shadows about her face.
    â€œHow did you do that?” Wren asked.
    â€œSo many questions. You must contain them. Fiddlers don’t like nuisances.”
    â€œHey!” Wren didn’t like being called names.
    â€œOf course I don’t mean that you are a nuisance, Wren.” Mary darted an alarmed look at the wide black archway behind them. It was covered with thick reams of cobwebby dust that shone in the moonlight. “Look, Baxter and Liza and I. There’s more than one reason we take extra care at the Crooked House.”
    â€œDoesn’t make any sense, if you ask me.” Jack foldedhis arms across his chest. “All the other Fiddlers come here, don’t they?”
    â€œNo one’s asking you, Jack,” Mary snapped. “And all those other Fiddlers will eat you alive for less than arguing if you cause trouble. Apprentices spend years in the kitchens before they even touch the stardust, and you want to waltz in there and befriend them?”
    â€œThere are other apprentices?” Simon asked, setting down the