One of Durosimi O’Stoat’s earliest memories is that of his father bringing a raven into the house. He recalled that it was a cold evening, the sort that seemed to seep into his young bones, no matter how close he sat to the fire. The bird, bedraggled and glaring, dripped rain onto the floorboards as his father held it aloft, inspecting it with the cool, critical eye of a man accustomed to weighing the worth of things that should not be weighed.

“An omen,” his father declared, his voice rich with satisfaction. He turned the bird’s head from side to side, studying the glint of intelligence in its black eye. “Or a gift. Either way, it’s ours now.”

Durosimi, small and silent by the hearth, watched as his father set the raven upon the mantelpiece, where it stood, disheveled but unbowed, as if considering its next move. The boy knew better, of course, than to ask where the creature had come from; things regularly arrived at the O’Stoat house in ways best left unexamined.

The bird remained perched insolently on the mantelpiece. It did not fly, nor did it attempt to leave when doors were left ajar. It did nothing but sit and watch. It always watched, even when his father muttered arcane incantations over leather-bound books, forbidding looking grimoires that smelled of damp and age. The raven watched until, unexpectedly, one dark and dismal midnight, it decided to find its voice.

It spoke not nonsense words, nor the garbled mimicry of an ordinary bird. No, the raven spoke in whispers; whispers which slid beneath the door frames and into Durosimi’s dreams, smooth and slippery as oil. Names he did not know but somehow recognized; places he had never visited, but was able to picture with unsettling clarity.

“You can hear it too, can’t you?” his father asked one evening, catching the boy’s gaze.

Durosimi nodded.

“Good.” 

His father smiled, and it was not a comforting thing to behold. “Then we will keep it.”

And so they did.

The years passed, and the raven — whom Durosimi never named, for it felt somewhat foolish to name something older and cleverer than himself — remained. It did not age. It did not falter. It whispered secrets, and, in the fullness of time, Durosimi whispered back.

By the time he was grown, when his father had long since disappeared into whatever dark business had finally claimed him, Durosimi was well-versed in the language of the bird. He knew what lay beneath the island, what stirred in the mist, what bargains could be struck if one had the stomach for them.

Then one day, as he stood by the window of the house that had always been too large and too full of ghosts, the raven hopped onto his shoulder, close enough for him to feel the icy chill of its breath.

“It is time,” it said.

Durosimi did not ask for what. He simply nodded, reached for his coat, and stepped out into the night…

But that was years ago and, at the time, many on the island believed that he had disappeared forever, just like his father before him. Little by little, Durosimi faded from the recollection of most folk, until one day, to the surprise of all, he returned. He was not alone; in his arms he carried a child – a child named Salamandra, his daughter, by all accounts. And a wild child she was, too, but that is another tale, and not mine to tell. 

Durosimi sat in the darkness of his parlour, alone with his memories. Cradled in his arms was the magical tome, recently gifted to him by Philomena Bucket. Durosimi was no fool. He and Philomena could hardly be called friends, and she would only have given him such a prize if she knew that it was something that needed to be mastered, but over which she would never have control. It was true, she could beat him hands down when it came to the application of Rough Magic, the province of witches. This particular book, however, demanded the attention of one versed in the High Magic, and the practice of High Magic has never been the business of a witch, however powerful she might be. 

The book was quiet now, and trembled in his arms, like a hare rescued from the hunters. 

It was in the deepest hour of the night when he, at last, heard it. The book whispered to him in the way that the raven had whispered, all of those years before. 

“It is time,” it said…