Sir Corvus Riddlemire wanted the tallest weathervane in Hollow Bend, and a hawk sat on it. The hawk shaped like a hawk. Iron feathers, iron beak, a perch above every roof in town. Corvus had studied it for three days from the willow's drooping branches. He still could not tell if the thing was rusted, welded, or cursed. Attack now and he'd break his neck for nothing. "A throne I cannot see," he muttered, "is a throne I cannot steal." He needed a closer look, and he needed someone who already had one. He found the cat on the cottage roof, tail flicking, watching sparrows she was too lazy to chase. Whiskers knew every ridge and gutter in Hollow Bend. She wore a little bell that gave her away, and she gossiped worse than she hunted. "You climb roofs," Corvus said. "I need the shape of the hawk up top. Tell me its weakness." Whiskers yawned. "Birds don't pay. What's the riddle, feathers?" "I fly but have no wings. I point but have no finger. Rust eats my ankle before my crown. What am I?" He tilted his head. "Answer, and you've told me the weakness yourself." The cat's ears twitched. She liked puzzles. "A weathervane." She licked a paw. "And the ankle bit's true. The base is soft. I've seen it wobble in wind. The rooster on the barn spins loose down low." "Not the rooster," Corvus said. "The hawk." Whiskers went quiet. "Nobody climbs that one. Too high. But the old man knows." She flicked her tail toward the field. "He built it." The old man was Gustonia McGee, a farmer who chased crows off his corn with a rake and language Corvus admired. Corvus dropped onto his fence post. Gustonia squinted up, red-faced. "Off my post, you black rag." "You made the iron hawk," Corvus said. "Tell me how it stands, and I'll leave your corn a week." Gustonia snorted, then spat. "Made it forty years back. Hollow pole, thin at the collar. Meant to turn easy in wind. Never meant a live hawk to nest there." He jabbed his rake. "Now shoo." Corvus flew off with what he wanted. The weathervane's neck was hollow and thin. Strike the collar hard, and the whole hawk would tip. He no longer needed to fight the living hawk in the air. He needed to break the perch beneath it. But Whiskers, pleased with herself, could not hold a secret. She trotted the rooftops and told the sparrows, the pigeons, the barn mice. By dusk the news reached the tall perch itself. The living hawk turned her yellow eye down toward the willow where Corvus roosted. Corvus had his weakness at last. He'd also lost his surprise. The hawk now knew a crow was coming for her throne, and she spread her wings wide to wait.

Corvus had lost his surprise, and one cat's loose tongue was to blame. Whiskers still trotted the cottage roof, chirping his secrets to every sparrow that landed. Each word climbed toward the iron perch. He watched her from the chimney and knew the truth. He could never take the weathervane while she narrated his every move. First, he had to shut her mouth. The bell gave him his answer. It rang each time she stepped, tiny and sharp. Beasts heard it and gathered to listen. Kill the bell, and her gossip lost its bugle. But Corvus could not slip a collar off a wary cat. He needed hands. He needed someone who owed the cat nothing. He dropped into the farmer's yard. Gustonia McGee stood by his door, scowling at a lively brown dog that would not stop barking. The dachshund yipped at the cottage roof, tail wagging, delighted by the noisy cat above. Gustonia raised his rake. "Two of you now," he grumbled at Corvus. "A crow and a sausage with legs." "Your dog hates that cat," Corvus said. "So do I. She rings that bell and every mouse in Hollow Bend knows my plans." He tilted his head. "I trade in favors, old man. Loose the bell from her collar, and I'll keep the crows off your corn a month." Gustonia squinted. He had no love for the rooftop cat either. She stole from his milk pail. "A month," he said. "And you keep your beak off my seed." He whistled the dog close and bent to its ear. The plan was simple. The dog chased. The cat fled down the drainpipe, low and fast, straight past the old man. Gustonia's hand shot out. He was slow, but the cat was cornered. His thick fingers caught the collar and gave one hard twist. The little bell popped free and rolled into the mud. Whiskers hissed and shot back up the pipe. She reached the roof and opened her mouth to warn the sparrows. But her step made no sound now. The birds did not turn. Without the bell, no beast marked her coming or trusted her chatter. She yowled at empty air. Her audience had scattered. Corvus watched from the fence post. The cat glared down at him, silent and furious. She had lost her voice in the only way that mattered. "A crier with no bell," he said, "is only a cat talking to herself." But he had made an enemy, not a friend. Whiskers would not answer his riddles again. She knew the roof better than any creature alive, and now she wanted him gone. From the tall perch, the living hawk still watched. She had heard the last warning before the bell fell. Corvus had silenced the gossip too late. The hawk already knew he was coming, and now he had no one left who would tell him what she planned.

The hawk knew he was coming. Corvus could not fly close and study it without being seen. He needed a hidden place to watch, high enough to see the weathervane but far enough to stay unnoticed. He scanned the rooftops until his eye caught the village clock tower. Two dark bell arches sat below its face, deep and shadowed. From inside those arches, he could watch the hawk all day and never be spotted. He flew to the tower and slipped into the lower arch. The great bells hung still on their beams. He tucked himself behind the near one and peered out. There it was. The iron weathervane stood clear across the roofs, the living hawk perched on its top, head turning slow. Corvus could see every twitch of its wings. He settled in to watch, pleased. A voice cut the quiet. "Enjoying the view, thief?" Whiskers sat in the shadow of the far bell. She had climbed here before him. Her collar hung bare now, the little bell gone, torn free by the farmer's hand at Corvus's bidding. Her green eyes did not blink. She knew every rooftop in Hollow Bend, and she had chosen this one. "You take my bell," she said, "so I take your secret. Fair trade." Her tail flicked once. Corvus held still. "A cat with no bell should not speak of trades." "I don't need a bell up here." She rose and stretched, slow, deliberate. "I only need one push." She stepped to the beam that held the near bell. Her paw hooked the old rope. Corvus understood too late. She pulled, and the great bell swung. Its bronze rim struck the frame with a deep, ringing boom that rolled across every roof in Hollow Bend. Corvus dove from the arch. Below him the tower sang once, twice, a heavy chime that no beast could ignore. Across the roofs, the hawk snapped its head toward the sound. Its wings spread. It saw the crow break from the bell tower, black against the pale stone, and it knew. Corvus beat his wings hard and dropped low behind a chimney. His heart hammered. His hidden perch was ruined. The tower would forever mark him now, its bells a trap the cat could spring again. He landed on a gutter and looked back. The hawk had lifted off its iron perch. It circled the tower once, studying the empty arches, then returned to its post. It had not caught him. But it had seen where he liked to hide. Whiskers watched from the tower's edge, silent and pleased. She had lost her bell. Now she had a bigger one, and she had used it to sell him out. Corvus had no vantage left. The one high place that hid him now belonged to his enemy, and every eye on the roofs had turned to hunt for him.

Corvus knew the weathervane's secret now. Its collar was thin. One good push at the right spot would spin it loose and topple the hawk from its throne. But the hawk never left its perch. It watched the roofs all day, head turning slow, eyes sharp. Corvus could not land near the collar and work it while those eyes stayed open. He needed the bird gone, even for a moment. He sat under a big weeping willow at the edge of a garden and thought. The tree's long branches hid him well. Below him, a cottage door swung open. A woman stepped out with a toolbox in her hand. Her apron was patched and stained. Her boots were caked with mud. Corvus knew her. She fixed half the roofs in Hollow Bend. She held a spare key for most of the houses on the street. If anyone climbed near the weathervane without fear, it was her. "You," Corvus said from the branch. "What has a neck but cannot swallow, and a head it cannot turn on its own?" Clementine looked up and smiled. She did not seem surprised that a crow spoke. "That'd be my old weathervane," she said. "Rattles worse every year. I've been meaning to climb up and tighten that collar." Corvus went still. Tighten it. That was the last thing he wanted. If she fixed the collar, his one plan died. But her ladder gave him an idea. When she climbed, the hawk would watch her, not the roof. Her noise and movement would pull its eyes. "Best hurry," Corvus said. "A loose thing high up is a danger to your neighbors." Clementine nodded and hauled her ladder against the wall. She began to climb, tools clinking. The hawk snapped its head toward her. It spread its wings but held its perch, staring hard at the woman rising toward it. Corvus dropped from the willow. He flew low behind the ridge, out of the hawk's sight. He landed at the base of the iron pole while the bird glared down at Clementine. She reached the top and set her wrench to the collar. Corvus hopped up the pole, quick and quiet, and pressed his whole weight against the loose ring. The collar was looser than he hoped. It slipped. The whole weathervane lurched and spun fast. The hawk shrieked and flapped hard to stay balanced. Then Clementine's wrench bit down and drew the collar tight. The spinning stopped dead. The hawk settled back, steady now, and its yellow eyes found Corvus clinging to the pole below. Corvus flew. He had spun the vane, but the woman had fixed it. The collar was tight now, harder than before. And the hawk had seen him at last, up close, no chimney between them. It knew his face. It knew he had touched its perch. The hunt was no longer a search. Now it was personal.