High Magux Ravenna Cithara ran her gaze up and down the thief as a herder might a sheep at market, her left hand wrapped around a quill.
Not just any quill.
The feather was from eagle tail, the long arching withers as dark as the blanket of night until the end, where white as snow sprouted. Ribbons of gold lace wrapped the handle, for human touch, yes even hers, would spoil the quill itself, and if one looked closely at the stem, a glitter might be seen, the shimmer of a spell to keep the quill full of ink.
Her left hand had lain so long in perch around its quill that a palsy now kept it that way, the muscles and tendons calcified into position.
Underneath the quill on a pedestal at her side was the finest vellum scroll to be found, its upper half filled with writing, an attendant clos
