17
“How far is it to your village?” Shade questioned our feathered friend.
Blackbeak nodded at the path Shade had found earlier. “A mile down there.”
Shade held the lantern up to the corpse. “If I recall, shadow hunting is done in pairs.”
“It should be, but Simon wasn’t the smartest human in my murder,” Blackbeak revealed.
Suddenly I didn’t feel safe having this bird on my shoulder. “Your ‘murder?’”
Blackbeak wrinkled his beak. “Oh that’s right, you humans call it something else. Herd? Flock?”
“A social group,” Shade informed him.
“Yes, that silly, stumbling phrase,” Blackbeak mused as he fluffed his wings. “You humans are so clumsy in your walking and words.”
I snorted. “Have you seen the way you walk?”
“I don’t waste my time with that stuff, not when I can fly,” Blackbe
