Roan woke in the cool and familiar darkness of the mines. For a moment he was twelve again, expecting to hear his mother’s call or his father’s shrill whistle to summon him home from a day of squeezing into cracks that wouldn’t admit a full-grown adult, scouting for gems and seams of ore. Then he tried to move, and the exploding pain in every inch of his body brought him back to the present with a string of curses that would have made his twelve-year-old self blush. He was twenty-six years old. He was the Falconer at Kethsgill. And by Keyif’s fire and Oelum’s ice, there was no reason for him to be back in a mine shaft. —- Roan wakes at the bottom of a mine shaft, badly bruised but lucky to be alive. He doesn't remember how he got here, but as he'd just witnessed a suspicious death, he's afraid someone is trying to cover their tracks. The only problem is, he can't imagine who would have wanted to kill the young lady Arleigh. The Falconer is a short story set in the world of the Twelve Baronies novels.

When a stranger tells her she's a mage, Ailith is intrigued but she's also afraid. Magic is heresy, and heresy means death under the Temple Law. Even literacy is suspect in a girl of her background, and her sister's impending wedding only serves as a reminder that she should be focusing on her future. Then a local priest asks her to rescue his son, and she starts to wonder if her talents could be a blessing, after all. The Lord Baron of Watersmeet, Leofwin isn't accustomed to welcoming uninvited visitors. A commoner turning up at his gates should be no more than a minor footnote to his day, but something about Ailith catches his attention. Alchemy can be lonely work and an apprentice might be just what he needs. As their lessons grow into shared experiments, Leofwin wonders if he might even trust her with his greatest challenge. But Ailith can't forget why she came to the castle.