9

Even after several years, signs of fighting mar the woods around the shattered falcon statue. You pick up bullet casings and note claw marks on a nearby birch tree—a battle that sprawls across several acres and ends with your sad find of human phalanges held together by gristly scraps of skin: a werewolf died here, and in dying, reverted to his human form. You take the fragment to Melodie, who is thankful.

"That was the Falcon of Doors, a waypoint for the werewolves of the Hart Warden tribe who sometimes visited Broad Brook," the philodox explains while trying to read the instructions off a tea sachet in the dim light of her barrow.

"So not the Silver Fangs?" you ask.

"Not technically," Melodie says, "but he's a philodox spirit, and the Silver Fangs here have traditionally been philodox-heavy, ever since Malachi Palys. (Graynail was an exception.) So he helped us as well. The spirit died during the battle, or when his statue toppled, or his death caused the statue to fall, or he perished when the caern was corrupted—who can tell cause and effect in the Umbra?"

"Can he be restored?" you ask, watching Melodie squeeze your sachet with all her strength.

"Not in this configuration of the world," Melodie says, "but a new spirit can be called. The Falcon with Many Faces will let you speak the language of birds and command the beasts."

Even as the philodox speaks, you can feel the egg tooth of the Falcon with Many Faces chipping at the membrane of your reality, trying to be born. You see the statue that would make him real, that would make him always have been real, an integral part of your spiritual reality.

"Talk to Lucinda about getting a statue made," Melodie says.

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