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close escape by the sounds of it,” Frieda said to them now. “But why were you out so late, Ariel? What happened?”
    “I was looking for Shade.”
    “Was he lost?” This was Bathsheba, and her harsh voice put Shade on edge.
    “No,” said Ariel. “He made a foolish dare with Chinook. They were waiting for the sun to rise.”
    “Where is Chinook?” asked Frieda.
    “He’s safe. He had the sense to return to Tree Haven before sunrise.”
    Shade frowned, and had to clamp down on his mouth to keep quiet. The
sense?
Chinook got scared, he flew off like a frightened moth!
    “Yet your son stayed,” said Frieda, staring so intently at Shade that he had to look at his feet.

    Tree Haven was a vast, ancient oak, with furrowed bark, and thick, gnarled roots buckling from the ground.
    “Yes, and I found him just in time. An owl was waiting in the tree, ready to take him.”
    “But the sun rose before you reached Tree Haven,” said Bathsheba pointedly.
    “Yes,” Ariel replied sadly.
    There was a brief, terrible silence in the elders’ roost. And when Bathsheba next spoke, Shade could not believe what he heard.
    “Then you should have left your son for the owl.”
    “I know,” Ariel said.
    Shade looked at her in horror.
    “It is the law,” Bathsheba persisted.
    “I know the law.”
    “Then why did you break it?”
    Shade saw the anger flare again in his mother’s eyes. “I did what any mother would have done.”
    The betrayal Shade had felt only seconds ago was washed away in a swell of pride and love for his mother. Bathsheba began an angry reply to this, but with a gentle
whoosh,
Frieda spread her wings wide and the other bat fell silent.
    “We know what you suffered in the spring, Ariel. And how bravely you’ve dealt with the loss of Cassiel. And you’re right. What you did was only natural. But the law is not natural; it is cruel.”
    Bathsheba chittered impatiently. “Everyone was saddened by the death of Cassiel. But Ariel isn’t the only one to lose a mate. Many of us have. You say the law is cruel, Frieda, but it can help us too. The law keeps us safe at night, not by day. If we are obedient, we can at least avoid some of these needless deaths.” She directed her hard eyes at Ariel again. “Your actions were selfish, and you’ve put the whole roost in danger.”
    Frieda sighed. “This, I’m afraid, may very well be true.”
    “Terrible as it is,” Bathsheba continued coldly, “if you’d left your son, the owls would have taken him, and this would be over. Now they will feel cheated; they will want justice.”
    Ariel nodded. “Yes, I know this is my fault.”
    “No,” Shade blurted before he could stop himself. He hated the resignation in his mother’s voice, hated the way Bathsheba glowered down at her. How dare she talk to his mother like this! Every set of eyes was on him now, and he felt all the thoughts in his head whirl uselessly. “I mean, it’s my fault,” he hurried on. “I’m the—it was me who wanted to see the sun, I talked Chinook into it, but really the sun hardly came up at all, so I don’t see why the owls were so upset. I’m sorry I’ve caused this trouble, and I don’t know much about the law, but I think it’s cruel and unfair, just like Frieda said.”
    In the following silence Shade wished, for the first time in his life, that he could be even smaller than he was, so small he would just blink out altogether.
    “You’ve obviously coddled your boy,” Bathsheba said frostily to Ariel, “and made him headstrong and insolent. Didn’t you tell him how dangerous the sun was?”
    “It didn’t turn me to dust,” Shade mumbled. He couldn’t believe he’d done it again, the words just sliding out.
    “What?” Bathsheba said.
    “Or blind me,” Shade muttered. “The sun. Those were just stories.”
    “That’s enough, Shade,” his mother said sharply. “I plan to punish him,” she told Bathsheba.
    Bathsheba snorted, unimpressed. “Little good that