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gizzard had frozen.” When he told me this, I had shut my eyes and imagined her looking into that night that was woven with her mate’s blood and seeing the sky torn with hagsfiends. Glaux, how had these creatures ever come to be? What ghastly trick of fate had sent them flying into the owl world with their terrible magic, poisonous enchantments, and vile charms?
    But now Siv was there in front of me. My queen, my dear friend, my secret love.
    “Grank! Thank Glaux you are here!” She rose from the nest and came to give me a welcome preening, runningher beak through my flight feathers. It felt good after the long flight.
    “Yes, I am here, Siv.” I nodded deeply to her, then turned and greeted her faithful servant, Myrrthe.
    “Do you know, I think there was a hagsfiend in the ice canyon tonight?” Siv said. “Both Myrrthe and I caught a strong whiff.”
    I had not planned to tell her about Penryck, the hagsfiend whom I had just seen. “Don’t worry. It’s gone now,” I said.
    “You saw it? Was it male or female?” She blinked rapidly.
    “Male. It was Penryck.”
    “Penryck,” she repeated. She seemed relieved and shut her eyes for several seconds. “I was so fearful it might be the one called Ygryk. She is a terrible hagsfiend.”
    “Yes, I have heard, but not, I think, as bad as Penryck.”
    “Worse,” she said firmly.
    “Why is that?”
    “She craves this egg of mine, Grank. She is the mate of Pleek now. They cannot have a chick. She’s a hagsfiend and he’s a Great Horned, so it is impossible. But she wants my egg for her own, for their own. She wants to practice her evil magic on it and transform it into a monster. She wants to be its mother!” Poor Siv nearly gagged on theword “mother.” “I am frightened, Grank. There is nothing more terrifying than a hagsfiend who craves a chick.”
    “There you are wrong, my dear,” I replied.
    “What do you mean?” Siv asked, genuinely perplexed.
    “I mean that there is something more fierce, more violent.”
    “What is that?”
    “A mother whose chick is threatened.” I saw a startled look pass through the amber luster of Siv’s eyes. “Now step aside, my dear, and let me see the egg.”
    I came up to the schneddenfyrr. There, nestled in the delicately woven pieces of ice and packed snow, was an egg, an egg the likes of which I had never seen. It was indeed a special egg, so luminous that one might have thought that within its white shell a tiny silvery moon lay cradled. I knew immediately that it was a male. And it came to me that this small male chick who would hatch soon should be called Hoole. Hoole, like the fabled mage of times past, who was thought to be merely an invention to soothe the ruffled spirits and tremulous gizzards of desperate owls in a world overrun by hagsfiends. A Hoole, whose spirit had led the dire wolves to the Beyond!
    I looked up now at Siv and our eyes met. A sliver of moonlight came through the issen clarren and ignited tiny amber fires in her eyes. I could read these flamesperfectly. A bird in flight, an egg cradled in its talons as it flew across the Bitter Sea. She almost guessed what I was seeing. Her voice trembled as she spoke.
    “The egg is special, isn’t it?” She paused for a long time. I knew that she was thinking of the inevitable choice she must make. I could not tell her. It was not my place. How could I, a male owl, know what it was like to lay an egg—any egg—whether it was luminous like this one or an ordinary white egg?
    Finally, Siv spoke: “In order to save him, I must part with him.” It was not a question but a statement.
    I nodded. “It will simply be too dangerous for you and the egg, Siv. You have every hagsfiend on your tail. They are looking for a queen with an egg. And they will find you. Lord Arrin would love to take your egg. It would give him incredible power if this chick were hatched in his realm, under his stewardship.”
    “Imagine”—she lowered her voice to barely a