The spare room is probably the vestry--or the vicar's office--and as such it is fastidiously neat and tidy. Or it was, before a shepherd, a heretic puppeteer, and a priest walked into it with a stressed magpie. The bird announces itself with a series of sharp squawks that no doubt rouse anyone not yet awake in the sanctuary, and manages to wriggle free of Tuo's arms. With a few flaps of its wings that scatter feathers all across the vicar's desk, Alvi flits directly up to one of the support beams that crosses beneath the ceiling and settles there, turning to glower down at the three humans below him--especially his person, what a betrayal--with reproachful corvid eyes.

"Oh, don't look at me like that," Tuo snaps at him in a whisper, picking a few errant feathers out of the hair tugged free of his scarf by the wind. "Better a brisk walk here in the cold than our freezing to death overnight. Pardon his manners," this said to both Dain and Vervain with an artless gesture. "He would be appreciative, if he could understand."