Der Rabe (The Raven)

Shawn Storie

Der Rabe (The Raven)

A Historical Fantasy Novel

Set in 1847-1890 Liechtenstein

“We rise by lifting others.”

Synopsis

In 1847 Liechtenstein, a clockmaker’s daughter discovers a metal that defies gravity and becomes Der Rabe—a mysterious flying figure who helps those in need. As Europe convulses with revolution and war, Anna Rheinberger must balance her secret identity with training others to fly, creating a network of helpers that grows beyond her control. When Liechtenstein’s 80 soldiers march to war in 1866, their guardian angel follows, leading to the historical curiosity of the army that returned with 81 men.

PART ONE: DISCOVERY (1847)

Chapter 1: The Clockmaker’s Daughter

Anna Rheinberger knew the exact number of ways a pocket watch could break—forty-seven—and Herr Grüber’s timepiece had invented a forty-eighth.

She held the watch to the oil lamp, squinting through her jeweler’s loupe at the peculiar damage. The lamplight caught something unusual in the mechanism: metal shavings that gleamed wrong, like moonlight on water rather than brass under flame. When she breathed on them to clear dust, they moved—not falling as they should, but drifting sideways like dandelion seeds.

“Fascinating,” she whispered, then caught herself and glanced toward the workshop door. Her father dozed in his chair beyond, his own work forgotten on his bench, spectacles sliding down his nose. The cathedral bells had rung nine times, and respectable unmarried daughters of clockmakers should have been in bed an hour ago, not bent over their father’s workbench examining the impossible.

But then, Anna had given up on being respectable years ago, at least in the privacy of her own mind.

She selected her finest brass tweezers and captured one of the curious shavings. It weighed almost nothing—lighter than gold leaf, though it appeared solid. Under the loupe, its surface showed no tool marks, no crystalline structure she recognized. When she brought a magnet near (her father would rage if he knew she’d opened his instrument drawer), the shaving ignored it entirely.

“What are you?” she murmured.

The shaving offered no answer, but when her wool sleeve brushed against the tweezers, it jumped. Not the simple static attraction she knew from winter mornings, but a leap that carried it three inches into the air where it hung, rotating slowly, before settling back down like a cat finding a comfortable position.

Anna’s heart hammered against her stays. In seventeen years of repairing watches—since she was tall enough to reach the workbench—she had never seen metal behave this way.

She glanced again at her father. Still asleep. Through the workshop’s thick windows, Vaduz lay quiet under March snow, only the night watch’s lantern moving along Städtle street. The Prince’s castle squatted on its hill like a stone toad, and beyond it, the mountains of Switzerland rose black against stars. A proper night for proper people to be properly asleep.

Anna had counted things all her life—the teeth on a balance wheel, the days until her father’s accounts came due, the forty-seven ways a watch could die. It was an easy country to count. Eleven thousand souls, give or take a hard winter; one prince, one castle, one cathedral; and, when the Confederation called for them, eighty soldiers—a number so small she could have put a name to most of their faces. A whole nation she could hold in her head entire. A place where no one was ever quite a stranger, where every soul was already counted and accounted for.

Anna pulled her shawl tighter and returned to the mystery.

Herr Grüber had claimed his watch simply stopped working after a walk in the mountains. But looking closer, Anna could see evidence of extreme heat—metal edges fused, tiny droplets of brass frozen mid-flow. As if lightning had struck the watch, though Grüber showed no burns.

She isolated seven more of the peculiar shavings, placing them in a clean watch glass. Then, methodically, she began to experiment.

First, amber and wool—her father had taught her about electrical attractions when she was twelve, though he’d meant it as an amusing demonstration, not a foundation for investigation. She rubbed the amber rod against her shawl thirty times, building the charge she could feel raising the fine hairs on her neck.

When she brought the charged amber near the watch glass, all seven shavings rose. Not just lifted but levitated, spinning in a tiny constellation two inches above the glass. They held there, defying gravity with an insolence that made her laugh—a sharp sound she quickly muffled with her hand.

She let the charge bleed away and tried again—this time rubbing the amber only ten strokes instead of thirty. The shavings stirred, lifted perhaps half an inch, and sank back. Thirty strokes: two inches, as before. Fifty strokes, until her arm burned and the fine hairs stood along it: the shavings climbed nearly to the rim of the glass and hung there, trembling, as though straining at a leash.

Anna went very still. It was not caprice. It was not a conjuror’s trick. The metal rose in proportion—a little charge, a little lift; a greater charge, a greater lift—as faithfully as a balance beam answered an added grain. Like winding a mainspring tighter for more force, except that this force pushed upward, against the whole patient weight of the world. And anything that obeyed a proportion could be measured. Anything she could measure she could divide into degrees, and meter out, and govern. A clock was only terrifying chaos until you understood that every wheel turned by a rule; then it was the most trustworthy thing in the world. This was the same. This was a thing with rules.

The shavings settled as the charge dissipated, but Anna’s mind was already racing. She knew the Leiden jar in her father’s drawer, knew the principles Volta and Galvani had discovered. What if…

“Anna?”

Her father’s voice made her jump, nearly dropping the watch glass. Johann Rheinberger stood in the doorway, rubbing his eyes, his gray hair standing at angles that would have been comical if Anna’s heart wasn’t trying to escape through her throat.

“Papa, I was just—Herr Grüber’s watch has the most unusual—”

“It’s past nine, liebchen.” His voice held that mixture of affection and exasperation she knew so well. “The watch will still be broken tomorrow.”

“Yes, Papa, but look at this—” She held up the watch glass, but in the dim light, the shavings looked like nothing more than ordinary brass filings.

Her father shuffled closer, squinting without his spectacles. “You work too hard. Your eyes will be ruined before you’re twenty-five, just like mine.” He touched her cheek gently. “And then who will marry you?”

The old argument. Anna bit back her usual response—that she could see perfectly well and marriage seemed a poor exchange for the freedom to work. “Wilhelm Biedermann asked after me again at market,” she offered instead, knowing it would please him.

“A good boy. His father owns three mills.” Johann covered a yawn. “Though not as clever as you. You need someone who can appreciate that beautiful mind.”

“Papa…”

“I know, I know. You’re not ready.” He squeezed her shoulder. “But Anna, I won’t be here forever. I need to know you’ll be safe.”

Safe. As if safety was something to aspire to, rather than endure. But she saw the fear in his eyes—the same fear that had lived there since her mother died bringing her into the world. The fear that he would lose her too.

“I’ll finish this and come to bed,” she promised.

He hesitated, then nodded. “Don’t burn your eyes out, little owl.”

When his footsteps faded up the stairs, Anna returned to the shavings. Little owl, he called her, for her habit of working at night. If only he knew what she dreamed of when she looked at the stars through the workshop window. Not marriage to Wilhelm Biedermann and a life of keeping his house and bearing his children. She dreamed of flight. Of freedom. Of discovering something that would inscribe her name in the journals she read in secret, ordered from Vienna under her father’s name.

She picked up one shaving with the tweezers and held it to the lamp flame. It should have glowed red, then white, then melted. Instead, it absorbed the heat without changing, and when she set it down, it had gained something—a faint luminescence, like foxfire in the forest.

“Extraordinary.”

Anna made her decision. Tomorrow, she would tell Herr Grüber his watch needed a week for “delicate adjustment.” Tomorrow, she would begin systematic experiments. Tomorrow, she would write to the Scientific Society in Zurich under a false name—perhaps “A. R. Schweizer”—and make careful inquiries about unusual metal properties.

Tonight, she would allow herself one more test.

She wound copper wire around the largest shaving, creating a simple coil. Then she connected it to the Leiden jar she’d secretly charged that afternoon while experimenting with her father’s electrical demonstration materials.

The spark jumped. The shaving shot upward so fast it cracked against the ceiling beam, leaving a small dent in the ancient wood before falling back to the bench where it lay, still glowing that ethereal blue-green.

Anna stared at the dent, then at the shaving, then up at the dent again. Her mind performed rapid calculations. The force required to propel even a tiny piece of metal that high, that fast… it was impossible. The energy input from the Leiden jar couldn’t account for more than a fraction of the output she’d just witnessed.

She was looking at something that violated the fundamental laws of natural philosophy. Something unknown to science.

Something that could change everything.

Carefully, reverently, she gathered the shavings and placed them in a small leather pouch she usually used for spare watch jewels. Tomorrow, Herr Grüber would have to wait. Tomorrow, her father would wonder why she was distracted. Tomorrow, Wilhelm Biedermann would once again fail to capture her attention at market.

But tonight, Anna Rheinberger, nineteen years old, daughter of a clockmaker, confined to a workshop in the smallest principality in the German Confederation, had discovered something miraculous.

She looked out the window at the stars scattered across the Alpine sky like spilled diamonds. For the first time in her life, they didn’t seem so very far away.

Outside, a raven cried once in the darkness—unusual for the night hours. Anna took it as an omen, though of what, she couldn’t say.

Not yet.

Chapter 2: The Mountain’s Gift

Three weeks had passed since Anna discovered the impossible metal, and Herr Grüber’s watch had become the most thoroughly repaired timepiece in Liechtenstein’s history.

“Still working on it?” her father asked that April morning, eyeing the completely reassembled watch on Anna’s bench. “That’s not like you, liebchen. Usually you have them fixed in a day.”

“The damage was… extensive,” Anna lied, carefully not meeting his eyes. The watch had been repaired for two weeks, but she’d been extracting every grain of the strange metal from its workings, accumulating nearly half a gram of the substance she’d privately begun calling “Grüber’s Gold.”

“Well, finish it soon. Spring orders are coming in.” Johann gestured at the stack of work orders. “And Wilhelm Biedermann asked if you might walk with him after church on Sunday.”

“I need to gather mother’s herbs,” Anna said quickly. “The early violet and wood sorrel. You know they’re best picked on the third Sunday after Easter.”

Her father sighed. “Your mother has been gone nineteen years, Anna. The herbs are just—”

“A tradition,” Anna finished firmly. “Her tradition. Please, Papa.”

He squeezed her shoulder, unable as always to deny her when she invoked her mother. “Be careful in the mountains. Snow’s still deep in the shadows.”

Which was how Anna found herself climbing the steep path above Vaduz that Sunday, her mother’s old gathering basket over her arm, though herbs were the furthest thing from her mind. She’d been experimenting with Grüber’s Gold for weeks, documenting its properties in a cipher of her own devising, but half a gram wasn’t enough for the tests she envisioned.

The path wound higher, past the last shepherd’s hut, into the realm of pine and silence. Here, even the church bells couldn’t reach. Anna breathed deeply, filling her lungs with freedom.

She’d been walking for two hours when she saw it—a scar in the earth where no scar should be.

The trees were wrong here. Not just broken but fused, their trunks melted together like candle wax. The ground itself had been transformed, turned to rough glass in places, and at the center of the disturbance…

Anna’s basket fell from nerveless fingers.

A chunk of metal the size of her two fists together sat half-buried in the scorched earth. Not the tiny shavings from Grüber’s watch, but pounds of the substance, its surface rippling with the same wrong light she’d come to know so well.

She approached slowly, as one might approach a sleeping dragon. The air tasted of copper and storms, though the sky was clear. When she knelt beside the metal, she could feel it humming—not with her ears but through her bones, a vibration that made her teeth ache.

This wasn’t from Grüber’s watch. This was the source, the mother lode. A piece of heaven that had fallen to earth and buried itself in the Swiss mountains like a secret waiting to be discovered.

Anna pulled on her leather work gloves and carefully excavated the metal. It was lighter than it should be, almost eager to rise from its earthy prison. As she lifted it, she noticed something else—metal fragments scattered in a trail leading higher up the mountain, as if this piece had broken from something larger.

She should have been cautious. Should have remembered her father’s warnings about the mountains, about avalanches and hidden crevasses. Should have considered that if metal could fall from heaven, perhaps someone else might come looking for it.

Instead, she thought of flight.

In her basement workshop—the secret one her father didn’t know about, converted from an old root cellar—Anna had been building something. A framework of leather and light wood, based on da Vinci’s ornithopter designs but modified for a different purpose. Not to generate lift through flapping, but to control it once achieved.

This much metal could change everything.

She wrapped the chunk carefully in her shawl and placed it in the basket, covering it with early violets and wood sorrel to complete the disguise. But as she stood to leave, curiosity pulled her attention to the trail of fragments.

Following them led her another hundred meters up, to a shallow cave she’d never noticed before. Inside, the walls were streaked with melted stone, and more pieces of the metal lay scattered like coins from a giant’s purse. But it was the marks on the cave wall that made her heart stop.

Claw marks. Or… no. Tool marks. Someone had been here, had extracted metal with chisels and hammers. Recently, too—stone chips were still sharp, unweathered.

Anna heard voices below on the path and froze. German, but accented strangely. Swiss.

“—certain it fell here,” one voice said.

“The main mass is already in Bern,” another replied. “But the scatter pattern suggests more fragments.”

“The Confederation needs every gram. The French are asking questions.”

“Then we account for every grain of it, down to the last,” a third voice answered—calm, exact, a little cold. Through a seam in the rock Anna caught a glimpse of the man it belonged to: young, not much older than herself, narrow and precise, writing in a ledger by lantern-light as though the mountain were a sum he meant to balance.

“Bern wants a number, Herr Hartmann,” the first man said. “Bern always wants a number.”

“They shall have one.” And there was something in how Hartmann said it—not greed, but a kind of devotion—that frightened Anna more than greed would have.

Anna pressed herself against the cave wall, hardly daring to breathe. The Swiss had found a larger piece. Were studying it. Which meant she wasn’t the only one who knew about the metal’s properties.

The voices faded as the men continued down the path. Anna waited another full hour before emerging, her mind racing. If governments were involved, if this was seen as a resource to be exploited for national gain…

She thought of her father’s stories about Napoleon, about armies marching through Liechtenstein, taking what they wanted. What would men with armies do with metal that could conquer gravity itself?

By the time she reached home, the sun was setting and her father was frantic.

“Anna! Where have you been? It’s been hours—”

“I’m sorry, Papa. I found the most wonderful patch of violets.” She showed him the basket, the purple flowers hiding her treasure. “Lost track of time.”

He pulled her into a fierce embrace. “I thought… the mountains can be dangerous.”

“I know, Papa. I was careful.”

That night, after her father slept, Anna descended to her secret workshop with the metal. She had to move quickly now. Others knew about it, were perhaps already harnessing its power. But they would think in terms of armies and advantage, of conquest and control.

Anna thought smaller. More personal.

She thought of flight.

The chunk yielded to her tools better than expected, cutting into workable strips with her finest saw. She measured carefully—she needed to maintain enough mass for lift while distributing the metal for balance. The framework she’d built would hold strips along the spine, shoulders, and hips. According to her calculations, this should provide enough lift to overcome her body weight, with power to spare.

But first, she had to charge it.

Anna had been improving on the Leiden jar design, creating what she called a “cascade capacitor”—multiple jars connected in series to multiply the stored charge. She’d been charging them for days using her father’s electrical demonstration equipment. Now, she connected the capacitors to the metal strips with copper wire, creating a circuit that should, in theory, transfer the electrical energy to the mysterious metal.

She threw the switch.

The result was immediate and violent.

The metal strips shot upward with such force that they tore the copper wires free, slamming into the cellar’s stone ceiling with a crack that shook dust from the beams. Anna threw herself backward as the strips ricocheted around the confined space like maddened birds, their blue-green glow painting wild shadows on the walls.

One strip shot past her head, close enough that she felt the wind of its passing. Another shattered a jar of preserves on the shelf. The largest piece hit the wall so hard it left a gouge in the stone before clattering to the floor, its glow fading.

Anna lay on the floor, heart hammering, staring at the chaos she’d unleashed. She could have been killed. Would have been, if the strips had maintained their charge longer.

But also… it had worked. The metal had flown.

She gathered the strips carefully, noting how quickly they’d discharged under violent motion. She’d need better control, a way to regulate the power. And restraints—definitely restraints. The metal had to be secured to a framework that could handle the forces involved.

From upstairs, she heard her father’s footsteps.

“Anna? I heard something—”

“Just dropped a jar, Papa!” she called, sweeping metal strips into a cloth. “Cleaning it up now!”

“Clumsy girl. Do you need help?”

“No! No, I’m fine. Go back to sleep.”

His footsteps receded, and Anna looked at the metal strips in her hands. They were warm still, almost alive feeling, and when she held them to the lamplight, she could see her reflection in their strange surface—distorted, elongated, as if she were already transforming into something else.

She thought of the Swiss voices on the mountain, of governments and armies. Then she thought of the cave painting she’d found while hiding—ancient stick figures with wings, drawn in ochre on stone. Had someone, long ago, discovered this metal before? Had they, too, dreamed of flight?

Anna made her decision. She would work faster, work smarter. She would solve the control problem and build her wings. And she would do it before the Swiss—or anyone else—could turn this gift from heaven into a tool of war.

Because some discoveries were too precious for nations and armies.

Some discoveries were meant for individuals brave enough to leap into the impossible and trust that they could fly.

Anna began sketching modifications to her harness design, adding attachment points for control cables, planning a mechanism for gradual charge release rather than the explosive burst she’d just experienced. Dawn was breaking by the time she climbed back to her room, exhausted but exhilarated.

Three weeks ago, she’d been a clockmaker’s daughter with impossible dreams.

Now she was an engineer of impossibilities, racing against time and nations to claim the sky.

In her dreams that night, she flew.

Chapter 3: Spring-Heeled Anna

The shoes looked perfectly ordinary.

Anna had spent two weeks on that detail alone, crafting them to appear as nothing more than well-made walking boots with slightly thick soles. The Helvetium plates hidden within were thinner than she’d originally planned—she’d hammered them to near-transparency, discovering that the metal retained its properties even when stretched gossamer-thin.

“New boots?” her father asked when she wore them to the workshop one morning in late April.

“Made them myself,” Anna said, trying not to bounce with each step. Even uncharged, the metal made her feel lighter. “The old ones were worn through.”

“Good sturdy leather,” he approved. “Though the heels seem high for working.”

“It helps me reach the high shelves.”

Johann returned to his work, and Anna forced herself to move normally, suppressing the urge to leap. She’d been charging the plates at night using a hand-crank generator she’d built from spare clock parts and copper coils. Twenty minutes of cranking gave her three hours of charge—enough for her purposes.

That night, she waited until the cathedral bells chimed midnight before slipping out through the workshop’s back door. The streets of Vaduz lay empty under a crescent moon. Perfect conditions.

Anna pressed the concealed button in her right boot heel, completing the circuit.

The effect was immediate. Her next step carried her three feet into the air, and she had to windmill her arms to keep from falling backward. She landed softly, as if the earth itself had become cushioned, and stood still for a moment, heart racing with exhilaration.

Carefully, she took another step. This time she was ready for the lift and pushed forward as well as up. She sailed eight feet through the air, landing silent as a cat on the cobblestones. Another step, bigger now—fifteen feet. Another—twenty.

She was flying. Not truly, not yet, but she was defeating gravity with each bound, turning Vaduz’s narrow streets into her personal playground.

Anna reached the main square in four tremendous leaps, covering ground that should have taken minutes of walking. The fountain at the square’s center beckoned. She’d always wondered what the angel on top looked like up close—it was fifteen feet high, impossible to see clearly from below.

She crouched, then jumped.

The world fell away beneath her. She rose past the fountain’s base, past the middle tier where water sparkled in moonlight, up and up until she was eye-to-eye with the carved angel. Its face was more beautiful than she’d imagined, serene and knowing, as if it had been waiting for her.

For a moment, at the apex of her leap, Anna hung in the air, weightless. She could see all of Vaduz spread below—the castle on its hill, the Rhine glittering like a silver ribbon, the mountains standing eternal guard. This was what birds knew. What angels knew.

What she would know.

Gravity reclaimed her gently, and she landed in a crouch beside the fountain, laughing quietly with pure joy. She wanted to shout, to sing, to wake the whole town and show them what was possible.

Instead, she heard footsteps.

Anna froze. The night watch was approaching, his lantern swinging as he made his rounds. She was in the middle of the square with nowhere to hide, and her boots were still charged—if she tried to run, she’d bound like a deer and reveal everything.

The watchman rounded the corner, lifting his lantern.

Anna did the only thing she could think of. She sat on the fountain’s edge and pulled off one boot, massaging her foot as if it pained her.

“Who goes there?” the watchman called, then relaxed as his light found her. “Fraulein Rheinberger? What are you doing out at this hour?”

“Good evening, Herr Fischer,” Anna said, recognizing old Jakob Fischer’s gravelly voice. “I couldn’t sleep—my tooth aches terribly. I was walking to clear my head, but I’ve turned my ankle.”

He approached, concerned. “Shall I help you home?”

“No, no. Just let me rest a moment.” She carefully pulled her boot back on, using the movement to flip the hidden switch, cutting the circuit. “There. Better already.”

“You should be careful, young lady. The streets aren’t safe at night.”

“Aren’t they?” Anna stood carefully, making a show of testing her ankle. “What danger could there be in Vaduz? We haven’t had so much as a stolen chicken in months.”

“Even so.” He offered his arm, and she had no choice but to take it, letting him escort her back toward the workshop. Each normal step felt like walking through mud after the freedom of flight. “Strange things lately. Lights in the mountains. The Swiss are up to something.”

“Oh?”

“Mark my words, they found something up there. Something valuable. Why else would they have soldiers guarding the mountain passes?”

Anna’s blood chilled. “Soldiers?”

“Saw them myself last week when I visited my brother in Balzers. Swiss uniforms, but trying not to be noticed. Whatever they’re protecting, it’s important.”

They reached the workshop, and Anna thanked him prettily, playing the role of the properly grateful young lady. But as soon as he’d gone, she slipped around to her secret workshop.

The Swiss were guarding the meteorite site. How long before they expanded their search? How long before they found the cave where she’d discovered her chunk of metal?

She looked at her spring-shoes, already planning improvements. They were just the beginning, a proof of concept. What she needed now was true flight. Sustained, controlled, powerful flight.

Anna lit her lamp and pulled out her sketches for the wing harness. The design had evolved considerably since her first attempts. Instead of da Vinci’s bat wings, she’d moved toward something more like a flying squirrel’s membrane—fabric stretched between extended arms and legs, providing control surfaces rather than lift. The Helvetium would provide all the lift she needed.

The control problem had nearly cost her an eye.

After the cellar—the strips ricocheting like maddened birds, the gouged stone, the shattered preserves—she’d understood the danger plainly. Helvetium did not ease into a charge; it seized it, all at once, the way a trap springs. Three weeks of nights had gone into taming that, and most of them had ended in failure she could measure by the new dents in the cellar ceiling. Her first attempt, a long coil of iron wire meant to throttle the current, had only stretched the explosion into a slow, vicious shove that flung a test strip clean through the cellar door and buried it an inch deep in the root-bin beyond. Her second, a simple gap of air between two contacts, had taught her nothing except that Helvetium would gladly arc a spark to her knuckles and leave her hand numb to the elbow until morning.

It was the watchmaker’s habit that saved her, in the end. A mainspring did not loose its force all at once—it metered it through an escapement, tooth by patient tooth. So Anna built an escapement for lightning. She layered copper mesh screens between the charging source and the metal, seven of them, each woven finer than the last, so that the current had to bleed through one veil after another before it reached the Helvetium at all. The first time she threw the switch on the new arrangement, the largest strip did not leap. It lifted—slow and certain as a soap bubble—and hung trembling a hand’s breadth above the bench while she stared, hardly daring to breathe.

She called it the gradient chamber. With it she could pour power into the metal as gently as filling a glass, or pinch it down to nothing. The discharge control came easily after that: sliding copper contacts threaded to rings she could wear on her fingers, each ring shorting or feeding a different bank of strips. She practiced the movements in the dark, blind, until her hands knew them the way they knew the seating of a balance wheel—so that aloft, with the ground wheeling below her, she would not have to think.

But there was still one major problem: power supply.

The hand-crank generator worked for the small plates in her boots, but the amount of Helvetium needed for true flight would require far more charging. She’d calculated it would take six hours of continuous cranking to charge the full harness for just one hour of flight. Her arms would give out long before then.

She needed a better power source.

Anna thought about the water wheels that powered the mills along the Rhine. The consistent rotation, the mechanical advantage… if she could somehow access that power…

Then she remembered: Herr Müller’s mill. He’d been expanding, adding a new wheel for grinding grain. The construction was still ongoing, which meant the wheel wasn’t yet connected to the millstones. It was just turning freely in the current, wasting its power.

It was also where her father had mentioned that Herr Müller had suffered an accident last week. Lost two fingers when his hand was caught in the gears. He’d survived, but the family was struggling with the mill work while he recovered.

An idea formed. A dangerous, audacious idea.

What if she helped him? Tonight, while the family slept? She could finish the gear work he couldn’t complete with his injured hand. And while she was there, she could test whether the water wheel could charge her equipment…

Anna looked at her spring-shoes, then at the wing harness taking shape on her workbench. She was running out of time. The Swiss were mobilizing. Soon, someone would announce the metal’s properties to the world, and then governments would control it all.

But if she could fly first—truly fly—she could search the mountains for more metal before the Swiss found it all. She could stay ahead of them, keep some of the metal free from government control. She could ensure that this gift from heaven didn’t become the exclusive property of nations and armies.

She made her decision.

Anna strapped on her spring-shoes and gathered her tools. The mill was two miles outside town—a long way normally, but with her boots, she could be there in minutes.

She slipped out into the night again, this time heading for the town’s edge. Once she reached the fields, she activated her boots and began to run.

Each step launched her twenty feet forward. The ground blurred beneath her. The wind whipped her braided hair behind her like a banner. She wasn’t flying yet, but she was something more than human, something between earth and sky.

The mill loomed dark against the stars, its new wheel turning steadily in the Rhine’s current. Anna landed softly in the yard, checking that the house was dark. The Müllers were asleep.

She slipped into the mill proper, where the incomplete gearing lay exposed. By lamplight, she could see the work that needed doing—precise adjustments that would be nearly impossible with a maimed hand. She set to work, her clockmaker’s training making the mechanical problems simple to solve.

It took two hours to complete the repairs. Then, heart pounding, Anna connected her portable charging apparatus to the main drive shaft.

The water wheel’s power flowed through her equipment like liquid lightning. In thirty seconds, she’d accumulated more charge than six hours of hand-cranking could provide. The copper coils grew warm, then hot. She had to disconnect before they melted.

But it had worked. The principle was proven.

Anna left the mill with the gearing perfectly repaired, a gift for the Müllers to find in the morning. But more importantly, she left with knowledge. She knew how to charge her flight harness now. She knew how to claim the sky.

Walking home (she didn’t dare use her boots so close to houses), Anna made mental calculations. She’d need to create a more robust charging system, something that could handle the water wheel’s full power. She’d need to find a way to access the mill regularly without suspicion. And she’d need to work faster on the wing harness.

Because tonight, bounding through the fields like something out of legend, she’d felt it—the call of true flight. Not just leaping but soaring. Not just defying gravity but conquering it.

In two weeks, she promised herself. In two weeks, she would fly.

Behind her, unknown to Anna, a small boy named Franz Kellner watched from his bedroom window as a figure bounded impossibly across the fields, silhouetted against the stars. He would remember this night for the rest of his life—the night he first saw magic in the world.

Chapter 4: First Flight

June 20, 1847. Anna would remember the date forever.

She stood in her secret workshop at midnight, wearing the completed harness for the first time. Two months of obsessive work had led to this moment. The leather straps embraced her torso like an external skeleton, brass buckles gleaming in the lamplight. The Helvetium strips—250 grams precisely distributed along her spine, shoulders, and hips—hummed with power from their evening charging at Müller’s mill.

The wings hung from her shoulders like a folded umbrella, waiting.

Anna had sewn them from black oilcloth, triple-waxed for wind resistance. The framework used clock springs she’d been collecting for years, each one tested for tensile strength. Extended, they would span three and a half meters. Folded, they added barely forty centimeters to her profile.

She ran through her checklist one final time: - Main lift bar: charged to 80x (faint blue-green glow confirmed) - Shoulder stabilizers: charged to 60x - Hip controls: charged to 40x - Wing deployment mechanism: tested and oiled - Control cables: all seventeen functioning smoothly - Emergency release pin: in place - Mask: …

Anna picked up the plague doctor mask she’d discovered in the attic two weeks ago while searching for leather. Her great-great-grandfather’s mask, according to the inscription inside: “Für die Kranken fliege ich”—For the sick I fly.

Another Rheinberger who had flown, in his own way, moving through plague-struck Vaduz bringing comfort to the dying. She’d modified it with better eye pieces from her father’s supplies and replaced the herbs in the beak with cotton soaked in mint oil. When she put it on, her breath came harsh and mechanical through the grille, and her vision turned green through the glass lenses.

She looked like a monster. Or a demon. Or something beyond human categorization.

Perfect.

This was not, strictly, the first time she had worn the harness charged. For four nights she had hung in the cellar like a marionette, a stout hemp rope knotted from the roof beam to her spine bar, the strips lifted to a cautious twenty and no higher. She had drilled the rings down there in the lamplight—rise, short, level, the small corrections—a hundred times and a hundred more, until her fingers found them without her eyes. But a rope was an honest liar. It let her believe she had control while quietly bearing her up. Tonight there would be no rope. Tonight the only things between her and the cobbles were a metal that should not exist and a girl who had never once truly fallen.

Anna climbed the ladder to the workshop’s hidden roof access—a trapdoor she’d installed herself. The night was ideal: clear, still, with only a crescent moon for light. Vaduz slept below, unaware that history was about to pivot on its axis.

She stood at the roof’s edge, looking down at the twenty-foot drop to the courtyard. Her calculations said the harness could lift her from a standing start, but she’d learned to mistrust calculations when it came to Helvetium. Better to have some initial momentum.

Anna pulled the wing deployment cord. The springs snapped the wings to full extension with a sound like a crossbow firing. The oilcloth caught the night breeze, tugging her backward. She compensated, leaning forward, finding her balance.

Deep breath. Then another.

On the third breath, she ran.

Three steps to the edge. A fourth into empty air. For a heartbeat, she fell, and terror seized her—what if she’d miscalculated, what if the metal had lost its charge, what if—

Anna pressed her thumb to the main control ring, releasing the short on the spine bar.

The world reversed.

Instead of falling, she was rising, pulled upward as if God himself had reached down to lift her. The courtyard dropped away. The roof passed beneath her feet. She rose past the workshop’s chimney, past the neighboring buildings, up and up into the night sky.

Too fast. Much too fast.

Anna released the control, shorting the spine bar again, and immediately began to fall. She frantically adjusted, finding a rhythm—release, rise, short, fall, release, rise—like learning to walk but vertical. The wings provided some stability, but she was spinning slowly, the world wheeling around her.

A shadow loomed—the church steeple, coming fast. Anna threw her weight sideways, extending her left wing fully while partially collapsing the right. She banked hard, missing the steeple by inches, close enough to see the startled face of a roosting pigeon.

Now she was flying too low, heading for a row of houses. Release the spine bar, rise. Too high again, the town shrinking below. Short the bar, descend. But wait—add some shoulder stabilizer lift to level out. Yes, better. Now she was gliding more than lurching.

Anna spread her wings fully and found, suddenly, miraculous equilibrium.

She was flying.

Not falling with style, not leaping in long arcs, but truly flying. The town spread below her like a map made real. She could see the Rhine glittering in the moonlight, the castle on its hill, the fields stretching toward the mountains. The only sound was the whisper of wind through her wings and her own harsh breathing through the mask.

She experimented with control. Leaning forward increased speed. Leaning back slowed her, almost to a hover. The shoulder controls affected roll—she could bank and turn like a bird. The hip controls managed pitch, pointing her up or down.

Anna climbed higher, rising until Vaduz was just a cluster of lights below. The air grew cold, thin, but she didn’t care. She was above everything—above the workshop where she’d spent nineteen years confined, above the streets where proper young ladies walked, above the life that had been planned for her.

She laughed, and the sound through the plague mask was wild, inhuman. Let them hear it and wonder. Let them think a demon flew over Vaduz. They weren’t entirely wrong.

Banking in a wide circle, Anna surveyed her domain. From up here, she could see the lights of other towns—Schaan to the north, Balzers to the south. She could see the Swiss border, marked by watch fires. In the far distance, the peaks of the Alps glowed silver under starlight.

This was what eagles knew. What angels knew.

What she knew now.

But even in her euphoria, Anna’s practical mind was taking notes. The charge was depleting faster than expected—she could feel it in the gradually dimming glow of the metal. The wings were effective for control but created more drag than anticipated. Her arms were already aching from holding them extended. And the mask, while protecting her identity, restricted her peripheral vision dangerously.

Already, beneath the fear, the clockmaker in her was drafting the next version. The dimming glow was a nuisance—but a nuisance she could turn to use: if the light failed as the charge fell, then the light was a gauge, and with a few nights’ calibration she could learn to read her remaining minutes aloft the way she read a barometer, by colour and brightness alone. The wing-drag and her screaming arms wanted a different answer—a detent, a simple ratcheted pawl of the kind that held a clock’s striking train, so the wings could lock at a chosen angle and hold themselves there without her strength. The mask wanted a wider field; she would grind in side-lenses and look the more monstrous for it. And the copper contacts had grown alarmingly warm against her skin even on so brief a flight—sustained, at a higher charge, they would scald; that would want ceramic spacers, or small vents to bleed the heat away before it reached her. She would not fly the same machine twice. Each flight would teach the next one.

Time to land. But where? She’d been so focused on achieving flight, she hadn’t planned the landing.

Anna circled back toward the workshop, reducing power gradually. But as she descended, she realized the problem: she was moving too fast horizontally. If she cut power completely, she’d crash into the building. If she maintained power, she’d overshoot.

She needed to slow down.

Anna pulled her wings into a near-vertical position, creating massive drag. Her forward motion stopped so suddenly she nearly blacked out from the deceleration. Now she was falling straight down, directly toward the workshop roof.

At the last second, she released full power to the spine bar. The deceleration was just enough—her feet touched the roof tiles with no more force than jumping from a chair.

She had done it. She had flown.

Anna collapsed to her knees, shaking with adrenaline and exhaustion. Through the mask’s eye pieces, she saw her reflection in a puddle of rainwater—a black-winged creature with a demon’s face and glowing traces of blue-green light still playing along the metal strips.

Beautiful. Terrible. Free.

She stayed there for long minutes, catching her breath, feeling the night air cool the sweat on her skin. Below, Vaduz slumbered on, unaware that the age of human flight had just begun on a clockmaker’s roof.

But as Anna finally stood to go inside, she heard something that chilled her blood—a child crying. Not just any crying, but the desperate, terrified sobbing of someone in mortal danger.

She looked toward the sound and saw smoke. Fire. The Kellner house on the edge of town was burning, flames already licking from the ground floor windows.

Anna didn’t think. She deployed her wings and leaped.

The flight was different this time—purposeful rather than experimental. She dove toward the burning house, pulling up at the last moment to hover near a second-story window. Inside, she could see young Franz Kellner, the boy who’d rescued from the well last month, trapped in his bedroom as smoke poured under the door.

The window was locked. Anna drove her elbow through the glass, ignoring the pain, and reached inside to unlatch it. The boy shrank back from her plague-masked face.

“It’s all right,” she said, her voice harsh through the mask’s grille. “I’m here to help.”

She grabbed him, pulling him through the window into her arms. He was heavier than expected—maybe twenty kilograms. Her power was depleting fast, and the added weight made her sink.

Anna released everything—spine, shoulders, hips. Every bit of remaining charge flowed to the Helvetium. They rose sluggishly, barely clearing the roof as the upper floor exploded in flames behind them.

She managed to carry him two houses away before her power failed completely. They tumbled onto a roof, Anna taking the impact, protecting the boy with her body and wings.

Something wrenched in her side when they struck the tiles, a deep bruised ache that emptied her lungs and would not give the breath back for a long, airless moment. She lay with the boy’s weight on her chest and the burning house painting the roof orange, and understood, dimly, that she had lived through this as much by luck as by design. Her calculations had not accounted for twenty extra kilograms of terrified child. They had not, in honesty, accounted for any of this. A finger’s width of charge less, a half-second slower on the rings, and they would both be in the fire now.

“Run,” she told him. “Get down from here and run.”

But Franz wasn’t looking at her mask anymore. He was looking at her wings, at the faint dying glow of the Helvetium, at the impossible reality of what had just happened.

“You’re an angel,” he whispered.

“No,” Anna said. “Just someone who can help.”

She leaped from the roof—no power now, just the strength of her legs and the gliding surface of her wings. It was enough to carry her into the shadows between buildings. Behind her, she heard Franz screaming for help, heard people responding, heard the fire brigade’s bells.

Anna made it back to her workshop and collapsed in the secret basement, every muscle screaming. Her elbow was bleeding through the leather. Her entire body felt like one giant bruise.

But she was smiling under the mask.

She had flown. She had saved a life. She had become something beyond Anna Rheinberger, clockmaker’s daughter.

The mask came off last, and she looked at it in the lamplight—her ancestor’s legacy, now hers. He had walked among the sick and dying. She would fly among the living and desperate.

Tomorrow, Vaduz would wake to stories of a winged figure who saved the Kellner boy. They would argue about what they’d seen—demon or angel, real or imagined.

Let them wonder.

Der Rabe had been born.

Chapter 5: The Widow’s Son

Anna woke to her father shaking her shoulder.

“Anna! Wake up! You must see this!”

She opened her eyes, every muscle protesting. Her elbow throbbed where she’d smashed the window. “What time is it?”

“Past seven. The whole town’s at the square. Young Franz Kellner says an angel saved him from the fire!”

Anna sat up carefully, feigning confusion. “An angel?”

“Or a demon, depending on who you ask. Come, quickly!”

She dressed with deliberate slowness, hiding her bruises under long sleeves despite the July heat. Her father practically dragged her to the town square, where it seemed all of Vaduz had gathered.

Franz Kellner stood on the fountain steps, his mother clutching him protectively. The boy’s face was smudged with soot, his nightshirt torn, but his eyes blazed with conviction.

“—had wings!” he was saying. “Black wings like a giant bat! And a face like a bird’s skull with glass eyes that glowed green!”

“The boy was terrified,” Herr Fischer, the night watchman, interrupted. “He imagined things. I was first to respond—there was no winged creature.”

“Then how did he get from the second floor to the Zimmerman’s roof?” Franz’s mother demanded. “The stairs were consumed. The ladder couldn’t reach.”

“He jumped,” Fischer insisted. “Fear gives us strength.”

“I didn’t jump!” Franz stamped his foot. “It carried me! It spoke to me! It said it was here to help!”

Anna watched the crowd’s reaction. Some crossed themselves. Others scoffed. Father Benedict looked troubled, murmuring about signs and portents. The mayor was trying to restore order.

“Perhaps,” the priest said loudly enough to quiet the crowd, “we should be grateful the boy survived, however it happened. God works in mysterious ways.”

“It wasn’t God,” Franz said quietly, but with such certainty that everyone heard. “It was something else. Something that chose to help.”

The crowd dispersed slowly, arguing. Anna’s father shook his head as they walked back to the workshop.

“Mass hysteria,” he muttered. “Though I admit, the boy’s escape was miraculous.”

“Perhaps miracles still happen,” Anna said carefully.

Johann gave her a sharp look. “You sound like your mother. She always believed in… more than what we could see.”

Before Anna could respond, a customer entered the workshop—Frau Weber, the baker’s wife.

“My husband’s watch,” she said, placing it on the counter. Then, quieter: “Is it true? About the angel?”

“The boy seems to believe it,” Johann said diplomatically.

Frau Weber leaned closer. “My son fell from the roof last year. We thought he would die. But something… someone… left medicine at our door. Medicine we couldn’t afford, that no one in Vaduz admitted to leaving.” She looked at Anna. “Miracles happen in Vaduz. They have for some time.”

She left before either could respond. Johann frowned at the watch.

“What did she mean by that?”

“I don’t know, Papa.”

But Anna was thinking. Others had noticed. Small helps, quiet miracles. How many times had she secretly assisted her neighbors? Leaving food for the hungry, medicine for the sick, coins for the desperate? She’d been practicing for Der Rabe long before she could fly.

That afternoon, while her father napped, Anna slipped out to check the damage to her equipment. In daylight, the repairs needed were obvious—torn wing fabric, stretched control cables, depleted charge. It would take days to fix everything properly.

She was examining the wing when she heard footsteps. Anna quickly covered the harness with canvas, but it was only Wilhelm Biedermann, holding wildflowers.

“Anna! I’ve been looking for you.”

“Wilhelm.” She forced a smile. “How nice.”

“I brought these.” He thrust the flowers at her. “I thought, after the frightening events of last night, you might need cheering.”

“That’s… kind.” She accepted the flowers, noting his perfectly clean hands, his pressed clothes, his careful distance. Everything about Wilhelm was careful. Safe. Proper.

Everything she wasn’t.

“I was hoping,” he continued, “that you might walk with me on Sunday. Your father has given permission.”

“Has he?” Anna kept her voice level despite her anger. Her father had no right to give permission on her behalf.

“He’s concerned about you. Says you work too much, spend too much time alone.” Wilhelm stepped closer. “I could make you happy, Anna. Give you a proper home, children, stability.”

“Stability,” she repeated, thinking of flight.

“Yes. A good life. A safe life.”

That word again. Safe.

“I’ll consider it,” she lied.

Wilhelm beamed and left. Anna crushed one of the flowers in her fist, then caught herself. It wasn’t Wilhelm’s fault he’d been born to want ordinary things. Just as it wasn’t her fault she’d been born to want impossible ones.

Three days later, the second crisis came.

Anna was in the workshop, struggling to appear interested in watch repair while her mind calculated wing modifications, when Widow Müller burst in.

“Please!” she cried. “My son! Andreas! He’s fallen into the Schlucher ravine!”

The Schlucher ravine—a gash in the mountain where the earth had split centuries ago. Thirty meters deep, with sheer walls. Ropes couldn’t reach the bottom safely. Anyone who fell in…

“We’ve sent for help from Chur,” the widow sobbed, “but it will take days. He’ll die of thirst, if the fall didn’t… didn’t…”

She collapsed, weeping. Johann comforted her while Anna’s mind raced. This was daylight. People would be watching. But Andreas was twelve years old. She knew him—a sweet boy who helped his mother since his father had died.

She couldn’t let him die for the sake of her secret.

“Take her home, Papa,” Anna said. “Give her some brandy. I’ll… I’ll organize the women to pray.”

Her father looked grateful for her initiative. As soon as they left, Anna ran to her workshop. The harness wasn’t fully repaired, but it would have to do. She charged it hastily at the mill—Herr Müller was drinking at the tavern, drowning his sorrows over his maimed hand.

An hour later, as dusk gathered, Der Rabe stood at the ravine’s edge.

She’d approached from the forest side, where the trees provided cover. Below, she could hear Andreas crying weakly. Still alive.

Anna deployed her wings and stepped off the edge.

The descent was controlled this time, almost gentle. She found Andreas on a small ledge twenty meters down, his leg bent at an unnatural angle. He looked up at her approach and screamed.

“Shh,” she said through the mask, making her voice as soothing as the device allowed. “I’m here to help.”

“You’re… you’re the angel Franz saw!”

“I’m just someone who helps. Put your arms around my neck.”

The boy was terrified but desperate. He clung to her as she lifted him, releasing power to the Helvetium gradually. They rose slowly, Anna fighting to control their ascent with the added weight and her damaged equipment.

Halfway up, a cable snapped.

The right wing collapsed partially. They lurched sideways, spinning. Andreas screamed. Anna compensated frantically, shorting and releasing different zones to maintain stability. They scraped against the ravine wall, leather tearing, but she held on.

They cleared the edge just as her power failed completely.

Anna set Andreas down gently among the trees, checking his leg. Broken, but cleanly. He’d survive.

“Stay here,” she told him. “People will find you soon.”

“Wait!” He grabbed her sleeve. “What are you?”

Anna considered. Then, carefully, she pulled a black feather from her pouch—one she’d found that morning, a raven’s feather.

“Someone who heard you needed help,” she said, pressing the feather into his hand.

She vanished into the forest, moving painfully but quickly. Behind her, she heard Andreas shouting for help, heard people responding, heard the cries of joy when they found him.

That night, the town talked of nothing else. The angel—or demon—had returned. It had saved Andreas Müller from certain death. It had left a black feather as a sign.

Anna sat in her workshop, repairing her equipment properly this time, reinforcing every connection. One snapped cable, thirty meters up, with a child clinging to her neck—one. She would never again hang her life, or anyone’s, from a single thread. Where one control line had run, she now rigged two, each strong enough to carry the whole load alone, routed apart so that no single tear could take both at once. One is none, she told herself, threading the redundant cables with cold, deliberate fingers, and two is one. It was an old clockmaker’s heresy made into law: a movement built without a spare was a movement already broken—it simply had not stopped yet. Through the window, she heard people arguing in the street.

“It’s a sign from God!”

“It’s a creature of the devil!”

“It saved two children!”

“It’s not natural!”

She worked through the night, improving, strengthening, preparing. Because she’d made a decision. The rescues hadn’t been planned, but they’d shown her something: the equipment worked, but more importantly, the need was real.

How many Andreas Müllers were out there, trapped where only flight could reach them? How many Franz Kellners, needing rescue from fires? How many problems could be solved by someone who could fly?

And something else, unbidden and a little frightening: she had begun to think of them as hers. Franz with his fierce certainty, Andreas with his broken leg and his raven’s feather—boys she had pulled out of fire and stone with her own two hands. She would not marry Wilhelm Biedermann. She would not bear children of her own; she had known that about herself for a long time. But these were hers now, in the only way that had ever mattered to her. She had caught them falling. That made them hers to watch over, however far they rose or however old they grew.

The next morning, Anna found something at the workshop door—a small bunch of wildflowers with a note: “For the angel. Thank you. —A.M.”

Andreas’s mother had left them. Not at the church, not at the shrine, but here. As if she suspected. As if she knew.

Anna picked up one of the flowers—a alpine rose, blooming despite the harsh mountain conditions. Beautiful because of its struggle, not in spite of it.

That afternoon, she heard Franz and Andreas talking in the street, comparing their experiences. Within hours, every child in Vaduz was drawing pictures of the winged figure. Some drew an angel. Some drew a bird. Some drew something in between.

But they all drew it helping. They all drew it choosing to save rather than harm.

And at the old oak crossroads that evening, someone left a black raven feather with a note: “My daughter is lost on the mountain. Please.”

Anna found it on her way to the mill. She stood there, holding the feather and the plea, understanding that something had begun that she couldn’t stop.

Vaduz believed in Der Rabe now. They were calling to her.

She could ignore it, return to her safe life of watches and eventual marriage to Wilhelm.

Or she could answer.

Anna put on her repaired harness that night, despite her exhaustion. The flying was not the hard part; the finding was. From the air a black mountainside was simply black, and she quartered it for three hours, calling into the wind until her throat was raw and her eyes streamed from straining at the dark—certain, with every empty pass, that she had flown directly over a freezing child and never seen her. She found the girl at last only because the moon tore through the cloud and caught the pale of her nightdress against the rocks. Cold and frightened but unharmed, the child walked the last stretch home on her own feet.

It should not have come down to the moon. A flying rescuer who could not see was only half a rescuer, and Anna lay awake long after dawn with the problem turning over in her mind, like a watch that would not keep time no matter how she coaxed it.

The girl would tell everyone about the winged figure that found her, that carried her, that told her she was brave for surviving so long alone.

And more feathers would appear. More requests. More needs.

Anna looked at her reflection in the workshop window—tired, bruised, but somehow more herself than she’d ever been.

The clockmaker’s daughter was disappearing. In her place, something else was emerging. Something that flew in the dark and answered desperate calls.

Something necessary.

Der Rabe spread her wings.

Chapter 6: Feather Marks

By August, the black feathers had become a plague of hope.

Anna found seven on her patrol route that night—tucked under bridges, nailed to trees, weighted with stones at crossroads. Each came with a plea:

“My father trapped in mine shaft. East of Schaan.”

“Medicine needed. Too poor for doctor. Baby dying.”

“Lost cow, our only one. Children hungry.”

“Husband beats me. Need escape. Please.”

“Mother can’t walk. Needs to reach daughter in Balzers before she passes.”

“They say you’re a demon. I don’t care. Help.”

“Roof collapsed. Can’t afford repairs. Winter coming.”

Anna stood at the old oak crossroads, holding the seven notes, calculating impossibilities. The mine shaft would take two hours. The medicine she could steal from the doctor’s supplies, but that was a crime. The cow might be anywhere. The beaten wife needed more than flight could provide. The dying mother—how could she carry someone that far? The roof—

“You can’t save them all.”

Anna spun, nearly triggering her wing deployment. Sister Margareta stood in the shadows, her nun’s habit making her almost invisible except for her pale face.

“Sister! I—”

“Was just taking an evening walk and found these interesting notes?” Margareta stepped forward, eyeing Anna’s thick cloak that barely concealed the harness beneath. “Strange how they appear only where you’ve been seen walking.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Child, I’ve run the orphanage for fifteen years. I know when someone’s lying.” She picked up one of the notes. “The beaten wife is Maria Stenzel. I’ve been trying to help her for months, but her husband owns the mill she works at. She has nowhere to go.”

Anna remained silent, calculating escape routes.

“The medicine is for the Gruber baby,” Margareta continued. “Lung fever. The doctor won’t treat them without payment. The baby will die within days.”

“Then why don’t you help?” Anna snapped.

“With what resources? The church gives me barely enough to feed my orphans.” Margareta studied her. “But someone has been helping, haven’t they? Food appears at the orphanage door. Medicine materializes for the desperate. And now…” She gestured at the feathers. “Now something flies in the night.”

Anna’s hand moved to her emergency release pin.

“I’m not here to stop you,” Margareta said quietly. “I’m here because you’re going to kill yourself trying to do this alone.”

“I don’t—”

“Three nights ago, you rescued the Hoffman twins from the river. Two nights ago, you carried medicine to three families and pulled Hans Becker from a well. Last night, you flew seventy miles based on the sighting reports I’ve collected. You haven’t slept properly in a week.”

Anna stared. “You’ve been watching me?”

“Someone has to.” Margareta pulled out a small journal. “I’ve been tracking the miracles in this town for two years. They started small—anonymous gifts, unlikely rescues. But lately?” She showed Anna pages of notes. “Twenty-seven interventions in the past month. All at night. All in places where only something that could fly could reach in time.”

“Supposing this is true,” Anna said carefully, “why haven’t you told anyone?”

“Because Vaduz needs Der Rabe more than it needs Anna Rheinberger.” Margareta’s eyes were kind but shrewd. “But Der Rabe needs help, or she’ll burn herself out before autumn ends.”

Anna felt tears threatening. The exhaustion, the isolation, the weight of all those desperate notes—it crashed over her like a wave.

“I can’t stop,” she whispered. “They’re calling for help.”

“And you’ll help them. But intelligently. With support.” Margareta took the notes from Anna’s trembling hands. “The mine shaft—I’ll send Otto and Friedrich with ropes and lanterns. They owe me favors. The medicine—I have contacts in Feldkirch who can supply it legally. The cow—”

“Is probably dead,” Anna said bitterly.

“Is in Werter’s field, three miles north. His son took it as payment for a debt but is too frightened to admit it. I’ll handle that tomorrow.” Margareta smiled at Anna’s shocked expression. “I told you, I’ve run the orphanage for fifteen years. I know every secret in this valley.”

“And the beaten wife?”

“Needs sanctuary and legal help, both of which the church can provide if properly motivated. I’ll speak to Father Benedict.” She paused. “The dying mother, though…”

“I’ll fly her,” Anna said immediately. “That one I can do.”

“It’s fifteen miles to Balzers.”

“I’ve gotten stronger. The harness is improved. I can manage fifteen miles with a passenger.”

Margareta studied her for a long moment. “Show me.”

“What?”

“Show me what you are. What you’ve become. I need to understand what I’m protecting.”

Anna looked around. The crossroads were empty, the moon hidden behind clouds. Slowly, she removed her cloak.

The harness gleamed in the starlight, its leather and brass framework embracing her torso. The Helvetium strips glowed faintly, charged and ready. Anna pulled the deployment cord, and her wings snapped open with a sound like thunder.

Margareta gasped, then crossed herself. “Mother of God.”

“Just engineering,” Anna said. “And a metal that shouldn’t exist.”

“How?”

Anna told her. Everything. The discovery, the experiments, the first flight, the rescues. As she spoke, she realized how desperately she’d needed to tell someone, to share the weight of the secret.

When she finished, Margareta was crying.

“What?” Anna asked, alarmed.

“You beautiful, foolish girl. You’ve been carrying this alone. Building it alone. Rising to meet every call for help.” She wiped her eyes. “You think God gave you wings to carry the world?”

Anna remembered her exhausted collapse three nights ago, waking up in a field with her harness sparking dangerously. “Then why?”

“To teach others they could fly.” Margareta smiled. “Not literally—though that would be something. But to show them that impossible things are possible. That help can come from unexpected places. That ordinary people can become extraordinary when their community needs them.”

“I’m not ordinary. I have Helvetium.”

“You were ordinary when you chose to help. The metal just gave you means.” Margareta pulled out another journal. “I’ve been documenting something else. Since Der Rabe appeared, crime in Vaduz has dropped by half. Neighbors help each other more. Children draw pictures of heroes instead of soldiers. You haven’t just saved lives—you’ve changed how people think about what’s possible.”

Anna folded her wings, suddenly exhausted. “But the notes keep coming. More every night.”

“Then we expand.” Margareta’s eyes gleamed. “What if Der Rabe wasn’t alone? What if others could help?”

“I only have so much Helvetium—”

“I don’t mean flight. I mean the network. People who could answer the easier calls, leaving you free for the impossible ones. I know dozens who owe me favors or who simply want to help. Give me a week, and I’ll have a system in place.”

“And if someone betrays us? If the authorities—”

“Leave the authorities to me. Father Benedict struggles with Der Rabe theologically, but he’s a good man. The mayor’s daughter was one of your early rescues—he won’t investigate too hard. As for the Prince…” She smiled mysteriously. “Let’s say the nobility has secrets of their own they’d rather keep.”

Anna felt something she hadn’t experienced in months: hope. Not just for the next rescue, but for the future.

“There’s still the dying mother,” she said. “Tonight.”

“Frau Hoffman. Yes. Her daughter Agnes is my friend. She’s been sending letters for weeks, but her mother is too proud to admit she’s dying.” Margareta stood. “I’ll go prepare them. Meet me at the orphanage roof at two in the morning.”

“The orphanage?”

“Best launching point for Balzers. Highest building on the south side of town.” She paused. “And Anna? Eat something. Sleep for three hours. The dead can’t help anyone.”

She left Anna standing at the crossroads, holding the feathers that had started as burdens but now felt lighter. Not because the needs had diminished, but because she was no longer alone in addressing them.

That night, Anna ate her first proper meal in a week, slept for exactly three hours, then met Sister Margareta on the orphanage roof.

Frau Hoffman weighed perhaps forty kilograms, wasted by illness. Her eyes widened when she saw Der Rabe, but Margareta soothed her.

“An angel?” the old woman whispered.

“A neighbor,” Margareta corrected. “One who can fly.”

Anna lifted the woman gently, cradling her against her chest. The charge was good—she’d spent an hour at Müller’s mill earlier. Fifteen miles with forty kilograms. She could do this.

They launched into the night sky, and Frau Hoffman gasped—not in fear but in wonder.

“The stars,” she breathed. “I haven’t seen them properly in years. Too sick to leave the house.”

Anna climbed higher, giving the dying woman a view of the entire valley bathed in moonlight. Below, the Rhine wound like a silver ribbon. The mountains stood eternal guard. The villages twinkled like earthbound constellations.

“It’s beautiful,” Frau Hoffman whispered. “I lived here seventy years and never saw it like this.”

“Most people don’t,” Anna said through the mask, forgetting to disguise her voice.

“You sound young.”

“Everyone sounds young through this mask.”

They flew in silence for a while, the old woman light as a child in Anna’s arms. Halfway to Balzers, Frau Hoffman spoke again.

“They say you’re a demon.”

“Some do.”

“But demons don’t carry dying women to see their daughters.”

“Perhaps demons aren’t what people think.”

“Or perhaps angels aren’t either.” The old woman’s breathing was labored but determined. “My Agnes thinks I’m coming to burden her. But I just… I want to tell her she was a good daughter. That I’m proud. That she doesn’t need to feel guilty for leaving Vaduz.”

Anna thought of her own father, aging and worried, not knowing his daughter flew at night. “Tell her,” she said. “Tell her everything.”

They reached Balzers in an hour, Anna’s muscles screaming from the sustained flight. She landed in Agnes’s garden, setting Frau Hoffman down gently as the younger woman ran out, crying.

“Mama! How—” She saw Der Rabe and fell silent.

“Someone kind brought me,” Frau Hoffman said simply. “Now come here, my dear one. We have things to say.”

Anna left them embracing, launching herself back into the night despite her exhaustion. But as she flew home, she noticed something new: lights in windows throughout the valley. People were watching for her. Not with fear but with hope.

Some held candles. Others waved white cloths. A few even left feathers on their windowsills—not requesting help but offering thanks.

She wasn’t alone. Had never been alone. The community had been waiting for her, just as she had been waiting for the means to help them.

When Anna landed on the workshop roof, she found a note from Sister Margareta:

“Frau Stenzel is safe at the convent. Medicine delivered to three families. Mine shaft rescue successful. Cow returned with apologies. Roof will be repaired tomorrow by ‘anonymous volunteers.’ Rest now. Tomorrow we plan the network properly. You’ve given Vaduz wings, Anna. Now let us help you carry the weight. —M”

Anna removed her harness for the first time in days, noting places where the leather had worn through to skin. She’d been so focused on others’ pain, she’d ignored her own.

But that was changing. Sister Margareta was right—Der Rabe couldn’t save everyone alone.

But Der Rabe didn’t have to be alone.

The Owl Network, Anna thought. That’s what she’d call it. Because owls were wise, silent, and they flew at night helping Der Rabe answer the feather marks.

She fell asleep planning it, and for the first time in weeks, didn’t dream of falling.

Chapter 7: The Owl Prototype

“We have a problem,” Sister Margareta announced, entering Anna’s secret workshop without knocking.

It had been two weeks since their alliance began, and the nun had taken to treating the concealed basement as her second office. Anna looked up from her workbench where she was assembling something delicate.

“Another one?” Anna asked. “Yesterday it was the mayor asking questions. Before that, the Swiss patrol near the meteorite site. What now?”

“Franz Kellner won’t stop talking about flying. He’s convinced he’s meant to be like you. Yesterday he jumped from the church roof with bedsheets tied to his arms.”

Anna dropped her tools. “Is he—”

“Bruised but unbroken. His mother is beside herself.” Margareta sat heavily on a crate. “But he’s not the only one. Half the children in Vaduz are building wings. Three adults have approached me privately about ‘joining Der Rabe’s cause.’ The blacksmith has been forging mysterious metal frameworks. People want to help, Anna, but they want to fly to do it.”

“They can’t. I barely have enough Helvetium for my own harness, and even if I had more, the training alone—” Anna paused, looking at the device she’d been building. “Actually…”

“What?”

Anna held up what looked like a medicine bottle wrapped in silk and copper wire. Inside, a sliver of Helvetium no bigger than a fingernail glowed faintly.

“I call them Feather Stones. Single use, limited lift, but enough to save a life.” She connected it to a battery, and the sliver blazed with light. “One gram of Helvetium, properly charged, can lift fifty kilograms for an hour. Not enough for sustained flight, but for emergencies…”

Margareta’s eyes widened. “How many can you make?”

“From my current supply? Perhaps twenty. But there’s another problem.” Anna pulled out a different project—a wooden frame with fabric wings, elegant in its simplicity. “This is what I’ve been calling the Owl design. It doesn’t allow powered flight, but with even a tiny amount of Helvetium to reduce weight, it becomes an exceptional glider.”

“You’re thinking of teaching others.”

“I’m thinking of Franz, specifically. The boy’s going to kill himself trying to fly. Better to teach him safely.” Anna ran her fingers along the frame. “With thirty grams of Helvetium—a tenth of what my harness uses—someone could glide from the mountains to the valley. With training.”

She did not say the rest of it aloud: that the Owl design had quietly taught her something about her own machine. Twice now her main charge had failed with the ground rushing up to meet her—once over the Kellner fire, once in the Schlucher ravine with Andreas Müller in her arms—and twice she had lived on luck alone. Luck was not an engineering principle. So she had begun stitching a second, smaller set of surfaces into the Der Rabe harness itself: bare unpowered wings of waxed silk, folded flat against the frame, that would snap open on a pulled pin if every other system went dark. They would not let her fly. They would only let her fall slowly enough to argue with the fall. After the ravine, that struck her as the most important thing she had ever built.

“Do it.”

“What?”

“Teach him. Teach them all.” Margareta stood, pacing excitedly. “Not everyone can be Der Rabe, but if we had a dozen Owls who could glide, who could reach places quickly, who could help with rescues…”

“It’s dangerous. If the authorities found out—”

“The authorities are terrified of the Swiss getting all the Helvetium. Prince Johann just sent a private message asking if Der Rabe might be convinced to work for Liechtenstein’s interests.” Margareta smiled. “I told him Der Rabe works for everyone or no one.”

“You told him—Margareta!”

“Relax. I said I’d heard rumors, nothing more. But it gives us cover. As long as Der Rabe is seen as Liechtenstein’s protective spirit, we have unofficial sanction.”

Anna considered this, then made a decision. “Bring me Franz. And Maria—the midwife who lost her husband. And Old Henrik from the mill.”

“Old Henrik can barely walk.”

“But he’s light, stubborn, and has nothing to lose. Perfect for flying.”

That evening, in a field outside Vaduz, Anna stood before her three students wearing her full Der Rabe regalia. Franz was practically vibrating with excitement. Maria looked determined. Old Henrik seemed amused by the entire situation.

“You want to fly,” Anna said through the mask, her voice harsh and mechanical. “Tell me why.”

“To be like you!” Franz said immediately.

“Wrong. Next.”

Maria stepped forward. “Because I deliver babies in the mountain villages. Sometimes I can’t reach them in time. If I could glide from the peaks…”

“Better. Henrik?”

The old man scratched his beard. “Honestly? I’m seventy-three. I’ve done everything else. Might as well fly before I die.”

Anna laughed, the sound eerie through the mask. “At least you’re honest. Very well. But understand this—you will not fly like Der Rabe. You will glide like owls. Silent, controlled, and only when necessary.”

She unveiled the Owl prototype. In the moonlight, it looked like something from a dream—elegant wooden bones wearing fabric skin.

“The frame weighs five kilograms,” Anna explained. “With a Feather Stone activated, your effective weight drops by seventy percent. You don’t fly—you fall slowly, with control. Maximum glide ratio is twelve to one. For every meter you drop, you travel twelve meters forward.”

“How do we steer?” Maria asked.

“Shift your weight. Lean left, turn left. Forward to dive and gain speed. Back to climb and lose speed.” Anna strapped on the prototype over her harness. “Watch.”

She climbed a small hill, perhaps ten meters high. At the top, she activated a Feather Stone and launched herself forward. Without her main Helvetium charged, she couldn’t truly fly, but the glider caught the air beautifully. She soared over their heads, banking in a gentle circle before landing softly fifty meters away.

Franz was already running toward the hill. “My turn!”

“Not yet.” Anna removed the glider. “First, you learn to fall.”

For the next two hours, she taught them to fall properly, to roll with impact, to judge wind conditions. Only when all three could leap from a hay wagon without injury did she let them try the glider.

Franz went first, of course. His launch was too aggressive—he dove straight into the ground. But the Feather Stone’s lift meant he hit with no more force than tripping while running. He came up laughing, grass in his hair.

Maria was cautious, barely gliding twenty meters but landing perfectly.

Old Henrik surprised everyone. His launch was perfect, his form excellent. He glided the full length of the field, whooping like a child the entire way.

“I was a sailor in my youth,” he explained, grinning. “Reading the wind is the same whether you’re on sea or in air.”

By evening’s end, all three could manage short glides. Anna gave them each a practice glider and strict instructions to train only at night, only in secret, and never from anywhere higher than three meters until she approved.

“What about the Feather Stones?” Franz asked eagerly.

“When you’re ready. They’re too precious to waste on practice.” Anna pulled out three black feathers. “These mark you as Owls-in-training. Tell no one. Help when you can. And remember—”

“We fly to serve, not to be seen,” they recited together, the oath Margareta had devised.

Walking home, Anna found her father waiting in the workshop, holding one of her spring-shoes.

“Interesting design,” Johann said quietly. “Very thick soles. Almost as if you were hiding something inside them.”

Anna’s heart stopped. “Papa—”

“And you’ve been exhausted lately. Coming home at odd hours. Your hands have rope burns that don’t come from watch repair.” He set the boot down carefully. “You’re going to tell me you’ve been seeing someone. Wilhelm, perhaps. Sneaking out for romantic meetings.”

The lie he was offering her. The easy explanation. Anna almost took it.

“No,” she said instead. “Not Wilhelm.”

“Then what? Anna, I’m worried. You’re distracted, secretive. You barely eat. And these past months, ever since that strange metal appeared…” He trailed off, and she saw the moment he made the connection. “The metal. From Grüber’s watch. You kept it.”

“Papa—”

“You’re experimenting with it. That’s what you’re doing at night. Experiments.” Relief flooded his face. “Oh, Anna. You could have told me. I know you have a brilliant mind. I know the workshop isn’t enough for you.”

He thought she was just conducting scientific experiments. It was another out, another easy lie.

“Yes,” she said. “Experiments.”

“Dangerous ones, from your injuries.”

“Sometimes.”

Johann sighed and pulled her into a hug. “You’re so like your mother. She had secrets too. Projects she wouldn’t discuss. I learned not to ask, just to trust.” He pulled back, looking at her seriously. “But Anna, if you’re in danger—”

“I’m careful, Papa. And I’m not alone. I have… colleagues.”

“Good. Good.” He picked up the boot again. “This metal—it’s what the Swiss are after, isn’t it? What fell from the sky?”

“Yes.”

“And you’re studying its properties. Perhaps you’ll write a paper for the scientific journals. Under a pseudonym, of course—they wouldn’t accept it from a woman.”

Anna’s throat tightened. He was so proud of her, and still so wrong about what she was doing.

“Perhaps,” she managed.

“Just… be careful. And Anna?” He smiled sadly. “When you’re ready to tell me the whole truth, I’ll be ready to hear it.”

He left her standing in the workshop, shaking. He knew. Not everything, but enough. And he was letting her keep her secrets.

There was one more thing she had built, and this one she had built for herself.

After the night she nearly lost the freezing girl on the black mountainside—three hours of quartering the dark, saved at the last only by a stray shaft of moon—Anna had gone back to her bench and asked a clockmaker’s question: not how to fly, but how to see. The answer turned on the one virtue of Helvetium she had so far only cursed. The metal did not merely hold a charge in order to lift itself; charged hard enough, it shone—and a thing that was its own store of power and its own lamp at once needed no oil, no wick, no second battery to drag aloft. At two hundred times its weight, a sliver of it threw light bright enough to read by, and brighter still above that. Best of all, the light was cold: no flame for the wind of her flight to snuff out, no heat to set a hayloft or her own gloves alight.

She set such a sliver at the focus of a polished silver reflector—the kind an optician grinds for a lighthouse, made small—and capped the front with an iris shutter cribbed straight from a clock’s strikework, so she could open the beam to a broad wash or pinch it down to a single searching finger of light. The charge that fed the lamp was the very same charge that would have fed a lift-strip; she simply spent it on seeing instead of on rising.

The first time she swept it down a slope from above, the whole hillside leapt out of the dark—every rock, every bush, the bright startled eyes of a fox. It had its tempers, naturally. Because the light drank from the metal’s own store, it dimmed as that store bled away, so that a long search became a race against a failing lamp; and a hard rain would kill it outright, for wet Helvetium shed its charge in minutes. But a Der Rabe who could see was twice the rescuer she had been blind. She made six more that week, each small enough to clip to an Owl’s harness, and taught her people to read the dying of the glow the way she had learned to—by its colour, blue-white fading down to a tired green—so that none of them would ever be caught aloft and sightless.

That night, the Owl Network conducted its first coordinated operation. Margareta had identified a family trapped by early snow in a mountain cabin. The path was blocked, but the slopes above were clear.

Anna flew Franz, Maria, and Old Henrik one by one to the ridge above the cabin, their new lamps shuttered dark to keep the Owls hidden until the last moment. From there they glided down with supplies—food, medicine, firewood—and only then unhooded the cold blue-white beams, which found the cabin door buried under a drift and the family huddled behind it. Anna flew the sick child out while the Owls dug, the snow-slope lit now in slow, moving pools of light.

By dawn, everyone was safe. The family spoke of angels descending from the mountains, multiple winged figures bringing salvation.

“Let them wonder,” Margareta said when they debriefed. “The more mysterious Der Rabe and her Owls become, the safer you all are.”

But Anna was thinking of her father’s words: “When you’re ready to tell me the whole truth…”

How much longer could she maintain the deception? How much larger could the network grow before someone betrayed them? And what would happen when the Swiss finally decided to claim all the Helvetium for themselves?

Standing on the orphanage roof, watching the sun rise over Vaduz, Anna saw Franz practicing gliding in a distant field, his small figure dark against the golden grass. Maria was probably already hiking to a mountain village, glider strapped to her back. Old Henrik would be at the tavern soon, listening for rumors and requests.

The Owls were flying. The network was growing. And somewhere out there, more Helvetium waited to be found.

Anna spread her wings, feeling the morning wind catch them. She had work to do at the workshop—watches to repair, a father to reassure, a normal life to pretend to live.

But tonight, Der Rabe would fly again. And this time, she wouldn’t fly alone.

Chapter 8: Teaching Others to Fly

November 1847. The first snow had fallen early, and Anna stood in Müller’s barn watching her twelve Owls practice their forms.

“Henrik, stop showing off,” she called as the old man attempted a barrel roll in the hay loft. “Maria, your landing approach is perfect. Franz, you’re still diving too aggressively—you’re an owl, not a falcon.”

Three months had passed since the first training session. The network had grown beyond her wildest hopes. Or fears.

“Der Rabe,” a new voice said from the barn door. “We need to talk.”

Anna turned to see Thomas, the blacksmith’s son, barely sixteen but built like his father. He’d joined two weeks ago after his younger sister had drawn a feather mark begging for help with their alcoholic father.

“What is it?”

“There’s a problem in Schaan. Big one. Avalanche risk above the school.”

Anna’s blood chilled. “How bad?”

“The snow’s accumulated wrong. Wilhelm Biedermann’s uncle is the mayor there—he’s evacuating, but…” Thomas hesitated. “There are rumors the Swiss want to trigger it deliberately. Clear the pass for their military road.”

“That would destroy half the village,” Maria gasped.

“Which is why we need to stop it,” Anna said. “But this is beyond what Der Rabe can handle alone.”

Sister Margareta, who’d been quietly observing from the corner, stood. “Then perhaps it’s time for the Owls to truly fly.”

Anna looked at her students. Most could glide competently now, but this would be different. Dangerous. “I won’t order anyone—”

“You don’t need to order,” Franz interrupted, now eleven and fierce with purpose. “We volunteer.”

The others nodded agreement.

Anna felt something shift in her chest—pride, fear, and a strange sense of completion. They weren’t her students anymore. They were her equals.

“Very well. Thomas, can you build controlled charge points? Small explosions to release the snow safely?”

The blacksmith’s son grinned. “I’ve been experimenting with black powder charges. Give me two hours.”

“Maria, you know the mountain paths best. Plot our approach routes.”

“Already thinking three ways up.”

“Franz, Henrik—you’re our eyes. Scout the Swiss positions.”

They saluted mockingly and headed out.

Anna turned to the newer Owls. “The rest of you prepare emergency shelters and medical supplies. If this goes wrong…”

“It won’t,” Sister Margareta said firmly. “You’ve trained them well.”

That night, Operation Snowfall—as Franz had dramatically named it—began.

Anna flew high above Schaan, watching her Owls take position. They moved like shadows against the snow, each carrying one of her precious Feather Stones. The Swiss guards never saw them coming.

Thomas had placed his charges perfectly—small explosions that would create controlled slides rather than catastrophic avalanche. But they needed to be triggered simultaneously, and they were spread across a kilometer of mountainside.

“This is insane,” Old Henrik whispered through the speaking tube they’d developed—copper pipes that carried sound between positions.

“All the best things are,” Anna replied.

She gave the signal—three flashes from a shuttered lantern.

The Owls launched.

Twelve figures leaped from twelve positions, their gliders catching mountain wind. Each carried a lit fuse on a long pole, timing calculated to the second. Anna held her breath as they swept across the snowfield like a flock of actual owls, silent and graceful.

Franz reached his charge point first, touching his fuse to Thomas’s explosive. The small blast echoed across the valley. Then Maria’s. Then Henrik’s. Like dominoes, the charges detonated in sequence.

The snow began to move—not the violent, destructive avalanche the Swiss had planned, but a controlled slide that followed prepared channels, missing the village entirely.

But something went wrong with the seventh charge. Anna saw young Catherine’s glider catch a downdraft, spinning her toward the rocks.

Without thinking, Anna dove.

She caught Catherine twenty meters from impact, the girl’s glider tangling with her wings. They tumbled through the air, Anna fighting for control with double the weight and tangled equipment. They hit a snowbank hard but safely, rolling down the slope in a cloud of powder.

When they stopped, Catherine was laughing hysterically. “We did it! Did you see? We actually did it!”

Anna looked up to see her Owls landing throughout the valley, villagers emerging from houses to stare in wonder. Not at Der Rabe alone, but at a dozen winged figures descending like guardians from myth.

The Swiss guards were retreating, their plan ruined. The village was safe. And the legend of Der Rabe had just become something larger.

“You saved us!” A child ran up to Franz, who had landed in the village square.

Franz looked to Anna for guidance, but she shook her head. This was his moment.

“We all saved you,” Franz told the child. “That’s what Owls do.”

The next morning, the story had spread throughout the region. Not of Der Rabe alone, but of her Parliament—that’s what people were calling them. The Parliament of Owls that served the Raven.

Anna found Sister Margareta in the orphanage chapel, praying.

“Giving thanks?” Anna asked.

“Asking forgiveness. I encouraged children to risk their lives.”

“You encouraged them to save lives. There’s a difference.”

Margareta looked up. “Is there? Where does it end, Anna? How many Owls will we train? How many will die trying to help?”

It was the question Anna had been avoiding. She sat beside the nun.

“Remember what you told me? That God didn’t give me wings to carry the world, but to teach others they could fly?” Anna pulled off her mask, something she rarely did even with Margareta. “Last night, I understood. It’s not about me anymore. Maybe it never was.”

“What do you mean?”

“Franz is training three new Owls on his own. Maria’s teaching medical techniques to accompany gliding. Old Henrik’s designing improvements to the gliders—his maritime experience is invaluable. They don’t need me to tell them how to help anymore.”

“That frightens you.”

“It terrifies me. But it also…” Anna searched for words. “It’s like watching your clockwork creation run on its own for the first time. You’ve built it, wound it, adjusted it, and then—it doesn’t need you anymore. It just works.”

“And Der Rabe?”

“Will keep flying. But differently. I can focus on the impossible rescues while the Owls handle what they can. I can search for more Helvetium while they maintain the network. I can—” She paused, struck by a thought. “I can finally investigate the Swiss operations properly.”

Margareta’s eyes sharpened. “That’s dangerous.”

“Everything we do is dangerous. But if the Swiss have found the main meteorite, if they’re extracting Helvetium in quantity…” Anna stood. “We need to know. The balance of power in Europe could shift if one nation controls gravity itself.”

“When will you go?”

“Tonight. The Owls are planning a celebration. They won’t miss me.”

But when Anna arrived at the barn that evening to retrieve her equipment, she found all twelve Owls waiting.

“Going somewhere without us?” Franz asked, arms crossed.

“This is reconnaissance, not rescue. I work better alone.”

“You work better,” Old Henrik corrected, “when you stop trying to carry everything yourself.”

Maria stepped forward. “We’ve been discussing it. The Swiss have at least three extraction sites. You can’t scout them all in one night.”

“But thirteen of us could,” Thomas added.

Anna looked at them—her students who’d become her equals, her secret that had become a movement.

“It’s too dangerous.”

“So was the avalanche,” Catherine pointed out, still giddy from her near-crash. “We managed.”

“This is different. If the Swiss catch you—”

“They’ll catch one Owl, not Der Rabe,” Franz said firmly. “The legend survives even if we don’t.”

Anna felt tears threatening. When had they become so brave? So selfless?

“Formation Seven,” she said finally. “Scattered approach, synchronized timing. And everyone carries smoke bombs for emergency cover.”

They cheered, and Anna felt the last walls around her heart crumble. She wasn’t alone. Had never been alone, really—the community had always been there, waiting for someone to show them they could fly.

That night, thirteen winged figures crossed into Swiss territory. They found three extraction sites, two research facilities, and a disturbing truth: the Swiss were building something massive. A floating fortress, powered by enough Helvetium to lift a building.

But more importantly, Anna’s Owls performed flawlessly. They gathered intelligence, avoided patrols, and regrouped without a single casualty.

Flying home, Anna watched her Parliament spread across the sky, each choosing their own path but moving toward the same goal. Franz barrel-rolled just to make her laugh. Maria flew in perfect medical efficiency. Old Henrik rode the winds like the sailor he’d been.

They landed in the field outside Vaduz as dawn broke, exhausted but exhilarated.

“Same time next week?” Franz asked cheekily.

“You’re all insane,” Anna said.

“We learned from the best,” twelve voices replied in unison.

As they dispersed to their daily lives—Franz to school, Maria to her rounds, Henrik to the tavern—Anna stood alone in the field. But she didn’t feel alone.

Sister Margareta appeared beside her, as she always seemed to when needed.

“You did it,” the nun said simply.

“Did what?”

“Gave them wings. Not the metal kind—those are just tools. You gave them permission to be extraordinary.”

Anna watched the sun rise over the mountains where it all began, where a meteorite had brought heaven to earth in the form of impossible metal.

“They gave themselves permission,” she said. “I just showed them it was possible.”

“Isn’t that what all teachers do? Show that the impossible is merely difficult?”

That evening, Anna found a note at the oak crossroads. Not asking for help, but offering it:

“Der Rabe, the Owls of Balzers stand ready. The Owls of Schaan await your call. The Owls of Triesen have started training. We are with you. —The Parliament”

The network had grown beyond Vaduz. Beyond her control. Beyond her wildest dreams.

Anna climbed to the workshop roof, looking out over the valley where lights flickered in windows—not seeking Der Rabe, but signaling Owl safe houses. The movement had become self-sustaining.

She’d given them wings. Now they were teaching others to fly.

The revolution had begun, and it had nothing to do with politics or nations.

It was a revolution of ordinary people discovering they could soar.

Chapter 9: Revolution Year

February 24, 1848. Anna was repairing a watch when Franz burst into the workshop, still in his school clothes.

“Paris is burning!” he announced breathlessly. “Revolution! The king has fled!”

Johann looked up from his work. “Not again. How many revolutions can France have?”

“This one’s different,” Franz insisted, then caught himself, glancing at Anna. She gave him a tiny headshake—her father didn’t know Franz was an Owl.

“How would you know, boy?” Johann asked, amused.

“Everyone’s talking about it. At the market, they say it’s spreading. Vienna, Berlin, Milan—everywhere, people are rising up.”

Anna set down her tools. If Europe was convulsing with revolution, Liechtenstein would be caught in the middle. Again.

That night, Sister Margareta convened an emergency meeting in the orphanage basement. The full Parliament of Owls attended—now twenty-three members from across the valley.

“The situation is worse than Franz reported,” Margareta began. “My contacts in Vienna say Metternich is about to fall. The Austrian Empire is fragmenting. And in Switzerland…” She paused dramatically. “They’re about to reveal their secret weapon.”

“The floating fortress?” Thomas asked.

“Fortresses. Plural. They’ve built three.”

The room erupted in concerned murmurs.

“How?” Anna demanded. “That would require hundreds of kilograms of Helvetium.”

“They found the mother lode. The main meteorite impact was in a valley they’ve kept hidden. They’ve been mining it for months.” Margareta pulled out a letter. “But here’s the real problem—Austrian scouts are coming to Liechtenstein.”

“Why?”

“They think Der Rabe is a Swiss weapon. They want to capture you—or it, they’re not sure what you are—and force you to reveal the Helvetium secrets.”

Anna felt the familiar weight of responsibility settling on her shoulders. “When?”

“They’re already here. Three men arrived this morning, posing as merchants.”

Old Henrik stood. “I’ll go to the tavern, see what they’re drinking and saying.”

“I’ll watch their lodgings,” Maria offered.

“No.” Anna stood. “This is my risk. I won’t—”

“Oh, stuff it,” Franz interrupted, earning gasps from the adults. “We’ve had this argument. We’re a Parliament, not a monarchy. We vote.”

The vote was unanimous: the Owls would handle surveillance while Der Rabe maintained normal patterns to avoid suspicion.

Three days later, the Swiss revealed their floating fortresses to the world.

Anna watched from a hidden position in the mountains as three massive platforms rose from Swiss territory, each the size of a large building. They hung in the air like geometric clouds, bristling with cannon.

“Mein Gott,” Thomas whispered beside her. “They could destroy any city in Europe.”

“Or defend Switzerland from any invasion,” Anna countered. “It’s not the weapon that matters, it’s who wields it and why.”

“Pretty words, but those are definitely weapons.”

She couldn’t argue. The fortresses were a declaration: Switzerland had transcended conventional warfare. The age of Helvetium had truly begun.

That evening, returning to Vaduz, Anna found chaos. Someone had attempted to assassinate Prince Alois II.

The would-be killer lay dead in the castle courtyard, a black feather clutched in his hand.

“No,” Anna breathed. Someone was trying to frame Der Rabe.

She flew to the castle that night, landing on the Prince’s balcony. He was waiting, sword drawn.

“I wondered when you’d come,” Alois said calmly.

“I didn’t try to kill you.”

“I know.” He sheathed his sword. “The assassin was Austrian. They wanted me dead and you blamed. Two birds, one stone.” He studied her masked figure. “You’re smaller than I expected.”

“Size matters little when you can fly.”

“True.” He moved to a chair, gesturing for her to sit. She remained standing. “I have a proposition.”

“I don’t work for governments.”

“Not work for. Work with.” He pulled out a document. “Liechtenstein is declaring aerial neutrality. No military aircraft—Helvetium or otherwise—may pass through our airspace. But to enforce it, I need Der Rabe.”

“You want me to fight the Swiss fortresses? Impossible.”

“I want you to be visible. To make it clear that Liechtenstein’s skies are protected. The Swiss respect you. The Austrians fear you. Use that.”

Anna considered. “And in return?”

“Official protection for your Owl Network. I know about them. Twenty-three at last count, though I hear Triesen just added four more.”

Anna’s hand moved to her emergency release. “You know too much.”

“I know enough. Sister Margareta is quite persuasive when she wants to be.” He smiled. “She convinced me that Liechtenstein needs Der Rabe more than it needs to know who Der Rabe is.”

“You’re not curious?”

“Desperately. But I’m also practical. Der Rabe serves everyone or no one. Knowing your identity might tempt me to ask for special favors.”

It was more wisdom than Anna expected from a twenty-year-old prince.

“I’ll consider your proposal,” she said.

“Consider quickly. The Austrians are planning something for tomorrow’s market day.”

Anna launched herself from the balcony without another word. She found Maria at the designated meeting point.

“The Austrians have recruited local malcontents,” Maria reported. “They’re planning to incite a riot tomorrow, use it as cover to search for Helvetium and Der Rabe sympathizers.”

“How many?”

“Twelve agitators, plus the three scouts.”

Anna thought quickly. “Gather the Parliament. We’re going to give them a riot they don’t expect.”

The next morning, market day began normally. Farmers sold produce, merchants hawked wares, children ran between stalls. The Austrian agitators moved into position, ready to spark violence.

Then Der Rabe appeared.

Not flying, but walking through the market square in full daylight, wings folded but visible.

The crowd froze. Someone screamed. Someone else knelt. Most just stared.

The Austrian scouts pushed forward, but found their path blocked by sellers who suddenly needed to move their carts. A child tripped one with a strategically placed foot. An old woman’s basket of eggs somehow exploded all over another.

“People of Vaduz,” Der Rabe announced, her voice carrying across the square. “Revolution comes to Europe. Men with guns and promises will tell you to rise up, to fight, to die for their causes.”

The agitators tried to shout counter-arguments, but found themselves surrounded by Owl-sympathetic citizens who loudly agreed with Der Rabe, drowning them out.

“I tell you this: Liechtenstein has its own revolution. Not of violence, but of mutual aid. Not of taking power, but of sharing it. We fly not to conquer, but to rescue. We rise not to rule, but to serve.”

She spread her wings, and twenty Owls suddenly stood on the rooftops surrounding the square, their gliders visible.

“Whoa,” Franz whispered, loud enough for everyone to hear. The boy had a gift for theatrical timing.

“Choose,” Der Rabe continued. “Foreign revolution that serves foreign interests, or local evolution that serves each other.”

The crowd’s choice was immediate and obvious. They turned on the agitators—not with violence, but with rejection. Cart after cart blocked their retreat. Children sang patriotic songs at deafening volume. Someone started a traditional dance that “accidentally” kept bumping into the Austrians.

The scouts fled, their riot prevented by something more powerful than violence: community consensus.

But as Der Rabe turned to leave, a shot rang out.

One of the scouts had a hidden pistol. The bullet caught Anna in the shoulder, spinning her around. She fell to one knee, blood spreading across her leather suit.

The crowd surged toward the shooter, but Anna raised her hand.

“No,” she gasped through the mask. “No violence. Not in my name.”

The Austrian scout was grabbed by citizens, disarmed, and handed to the city guard. Anna stood, swaying, her hand pressed to the wound.

“Der Rabe—” someone called.

“Is fine,” she lied, triggering her emergency charge. She launched upward, flying erratically toward the mountains. But instead of heading to her workshop, she crashed on the orphanage roof.

Sister Margareta was there in seconds, along with Franz and Maria.

“Get the suit off,” Margareta ordered. “Franz, fetch Doctor Weber—tell him it’s for me, he won’t ask questions. Maria, prepare the surgery.”

As they cut away her suit, Anna grabbed Margareta’s wrist. “The Prince… he needs to know… aerial neutrality… I agree…”

“Later. Don’t you dare die on us.”

“Can’t,” Anna mumbled as the darkness took her. “Still have to… teach Henrik… to do a proper barrel roll…”

She woke three days later to find her father sitting beside her bed.

“Papa?” she croaked.

“Hello, little owl.” His eyes were red with tears. “Sister Margareta told me everything.”

Anna tried to sit up, panic flooding her system. “Papa, I—”

“Are the bravest, most foolish, most wonderful daughter a man could ask for.” He gently pushed her back down. “And also Der Rabe, apparently.”

“You’re not angry?”

“Furious. Terrified. Heartbroken that you couldn’t tell me.” He squeezed her hand. “And so proud I could burst.”

Anna started crying then, all the months of deception and isolation pouring out. Johann held her, careful of her bandages.

“The whole town knows,” he said eventually. “That you were shot, I mean, not who you are. The Prince declared Der Rabe a protected symbol of Liechtenstein. Anyone who attacks you attacks the nation.”

“The Austrians?”

“Gone. Recalled to deal with their own revolution. Vienna’s in chaos.” He smiled. “But Vaduz is calm. Your Owls have been maintaining order, delivering supplies, keeping the peace. You built something amazing, Anna.”

“We built it,” she corrected. “All of us.”

Later, when she was strong enough, Sister Margareta brought news.

“The Swiss have agreed to respect our aerial neutrality. The Austrians are too busy with their revolution to care about us. And the Prince has a gift.”

She produced a small box. Inside was a ring bearing the coat of arms of Liechtenstein.

“You’re now officially a Knight of the Order of the Raven, which the Prince just created. It comes with legal immunity and a stipend.”

Anna laughed, then winced at the pain. “A paid superhero?”

“A recognized protector. There’s a difference.” Margareta’s face grew serious. “The world is changing, Anna. Revolutions everywhere, Helvetium technology spreading, old orders falling. Liechtenstein needs Der Rabe now more than ever.”

Anna looked out the window where her Owls were conducting flight training in broad daylight, no longer hiding.

“Then Der Rabe will be there,” she said. “But not alone. Never alone again.”

The revolution year had come to Liechtenstein not with violence but with wings. And in a Europe torn by conflict, the small principality had found its own path: upward, together, free.

Chapter 10: The Miller’s Debt

May 1848. Anna’s shoulder had healed, leaving only a puckered scar and occasional stiffness. She was in her workshop, struggling with the fundamental problem that had plagued her since the beginning: power.

The hand-crank took hours for minimal charge. The water wheel at Müller’s mill worked better, but she could only use it when the mill was idle. And now, with the Owl Network expanding, the demand for charged Helvetium far exceeded supply.

She was sketching yet another failed solution when Herr Müller himself appeared at the workshop door.

“Fraulein Rheinberger,” he said formally. His left hand was still wrapped, missing the two fingers from last year’s accident.

“Herr Müller. How can I help you?”

He entered, closing the door behind him. “I know.”

Anna’s blood froze. “Know what?”

“Everything. Der Rabe. The mill wheel charging. You.” He held up his maimed hand. “You saved me that day. I was dying, blood everywhere. Then Der Rabe descended like God’s own angel.”

“I don’t know what—”

“Please.” His voice was rough with emotion. “Don’t lie. I’ve known for months. The side door I leave open? Not forgetfulness. The new gearing that appeared overnight? I know my own mill’s machinery—those were clockmaker’s modifications.”

Anna sat slowly, mind racing. If he’d known for months, why speak now?

“What do you want?” she asked.

“To pay my debt.” He pulled out a worn journal. “My grandfather was clever with machines. He wrote about something called ‘sympathetic vibration’ in water wheels. Look.”

Anna took the journal, reading the faded German script. Her eyes widened.

“If two wheels share the same water source, they can be tuned to resonate…”

“I’ve done more than that,” Müller said. “I’ve been experimenting since I figured out what you were doing. Watch this.”

He produced two small pieces of metal—not Helvetium, just iron. But when he struck one with a hammer, the other rang with the same tone, though they weren’t touching.

“Sympathetic resonance,” Anna breathed. “But how does this help with—” She stopped, the implications crashing over her. “Oh my God. If I tuned Helvetium to resonate with the mill wheel’s rotation…”

“It would charge constantly, as long as the wheel turns.” Müller smiled grimly. “My mill runs day and night now. The wheel never stops.”

Anna stood, pacing excitedly. “But the distance—”

“My grandfather claimed it worked up to a mile with proper tuning.”

“A mile!” Anna grabbed paper, sketching frantically. “If I create matched pairs, one at the mill, one in my harness… the charging would be continuous… I wouldn’t need to stop to recharge… I could fly indefinitely!”

“That’s my thought.”

Anna looked up at him. “Why? Why help me this much?”

Müller’s face darkened. “My son—my Andreas—he would have died in that ravine. My wife still cries with gratitude some nights. And these fingers?” He raised his maimed hand. “A small price for my life. But there’s more.”

“More?”

“The Swiss approached me. Offered gold for information about Der Rabe. They know about the mill wheel.” He saw Anna’s alarm. “I told them nothing. But they’ll be back. You need this new system working before they figure it out.”

Anna worked for three straight days, barely sleeping. The principle was sound but the execution was delicate. The Helvetium had to be charged to produce exactly the right frequency, then maintained at that vibration while being built into the harness.

Franz, Maria, and Thomas helped, bringing food and keeping watch. Her father, now in on the secret, handled customers and made excuses for Anna’s absence.

On the third night, it was ready.

Anna stood in Müller’s mill, her new harness gleaming with modifications. Instead of simple metal strips, each piece of Helvetium was wrapped in copper coils, connected to small resonance chambers. The largest piece, along her spine, hummed in harmony with the water wheel’s rotation.

“If this doesn’t work—” Thomas started.

“It’ll work,” Anna said with more confidence than she felt.

She activated the sympathetic connection.

The effect was immediate. Power flowed into the Helvetium—not in bursts like before, but in a steady stream. The metal began to glow, brighter and brighter, until Anna had to close her eyes against the brilliance.

“Too much!” Franz shouted. “You’ll overload!”

But Anna was already adjusting, using her new control system—copper contacts she could short with finger movements, bleeding off excess power as heat. The glow stabilized at twice what she’d ever achieved before.

“Now comes the real test,” she said.

She’d realized that constantly charged Helvetium presented a new problem: she’d always have lift. The solution was counterintuitive but brilliant—instead of trying to turn off the charge, she would control it through selective grounding.

Her new gloves had copper mesh in the palms. Touch them together, and the circuit completed through her body, shorting the Helvetium and canceling the lift. Separate them, and she flew. Partial contact gave partial lift.

Anna walked outside, the others following. She stood in the mill yard, looking up at the stars.

“Be careful,” Maria warned. “With that much power—”

Anna separated her hands.

She didn’t rise—she launched. Zero to fifty meters in two heartbeats. The ground fell away like she’d been fired from a cannon. The wind tore at her mask, her wings, everything.

Fighting panic, Anna brought her palms partially together. Her ascent slowed. She separated them again—rapid climb. Together—controlled descent.

She was flying by thought, by instinct, by tiny hand movements.

Laughing wildly, Anna experimented. Banking, diving, climbing, hovering—everything was instantaneous now. No delay between thought and action. She was truly flying, not just riding stored power but channeling continuous energy from the mill below.

She climbed until Vaduz was a cluster of lights, then higher, until the air grew thin. The connection held. The mill’s power flowed into her regardless of distance or altitude.

But the true revelation came when she tried to hover. Before, hovering had been exhausting, requiring constant adjustment of multiple controls. Now, she simply held her hands at the right separation and hung in the air, motionless, effortless.

She could stay here forever.

The thought was intoxicating and terrifying. What were the limits now? How far could she fly? How high? How fast?

Anna dove, reaching speeds that made her eyes water even through the mask. The ground rushed up, but a simple palm-touch bled off her momentum. She landed soft as a feather in the mill yard.

The others were staring.

“That was…” Franz struggled for words. “You were like a real raven. No, like a meteor. No, like—”

“Like nothing that’s ever existed,” Thomas finished. “Anna, do you understand what you’ve done? You’ve achieved true human flight. Not gliding, not jumping—flight.”

“We’ve achieved it,” Anna corrected, looking at Müller. “Without your grandfather’s insights, without your mill—”

“Without your courage to try,” Müller interrupted. “We’re even now, Fraulein. My debt is paid.”

“There was never a debt.”

“There was. And now there’s a partnership.” He smiled, the expression strange on his usually grim face. “My mill powers Der Rabe. I’m part of this now. Part of something…” He gestured at the sky where Anna had danced among stars. “Something impossible made real.”

Over the following weeks, Anna learned to master her new capabilities. She could fly for hours without fatigue. Reach altitudes where the earth curved beneath her. Travel to Zurich and back in a single night.

But the greatest change was psychological. Before, each flight had been a calculated risk, each rescue a drain on precious resources. Now, she could respond instantly to any crisis, stay airborne as long as needed, carry heavier loads.

The Owl Network adapted too. With Anna handling the most difficult rescues, they could focus on building infrastructure. Safe houses, supply caches, communication networks—a whole parallel system of mutual aid.

One night, Anna found herself hovering over the Rhine, watching the moonlight on the water. She thought about the past year—how a few metal shavings in a watch had led to this moment.

Sister Margareta’s voice echoed in her memory: “God didn’t give you wings to carry the world, but to teach others they could fly.”

But now, with unlimited flight, couldn’t she carry the world? Or at least Liechtenstein?

A feather mark waited at the oak crossroads: “Swiss forces massing at border. Prince requests Der Rabe’s presence. Urgent.”

Anna smiled grimly behind her mask. Let them come. They had their floating fortresses, their military might, their government backing.

But Liechtenstein had Der Rabe. And Der Rabe could now fly forever.

She launched toward the castle, ready to face whatever came next. Behind her, the mill wheel turned steadily, sending its power through the night to the woman who’d learned to fly.

The revolution wasn’t over. If anything, it had just truly begun.

Chapter 11: Sky Pirates

Anna landed on the castle balcony to find Prince Alois was not alone. Three men in Swiss military uniforms stood beside him, their faces grim.

“Der Rabe,” the Prince said formally. “Thank you for coming. May I introduce Colonel Hartmann of the Swiss Helvetium Defense Force.”

The name struck her like a dropped tool. Hartmann. Five years fell away and she was a girl of nineteen pressed to cold stone in a mountain cave, listening to a young surveyor promise Bern its number. The face had thickened and hardened, the precision grown into command—but it was him. The man who counted grams had risen to guard them all; of course he had. She had spent five years keeping Helvetium out of ledgers, and he had spent them trying to get every grain of it back in. They were, she thought, two halves of the same obsession, wearing different faces.

Anna tensed, ready to flee, but the Colonel raised his empty hands.

“We’re not here to fight,” Hartmann said in accented German. “We’re here to warn you.”

“Warn me?”

“Criminals have stolen Helvetium. Not just a few grams—kilograms. They raided one of our processing facilities, killed twelve guards.” His jaw tightened. “They’re calling themselves the Cloud Reapers. They’re heading this way.”

“Why would they come to Liechtenstein?”

“Because,” Prince Alois interjected, “they want you. Der Rabe. The most famous flier in Europe. They want to prove themselves by defeating you.”

Anna laughed, the sound harsh through her mask. “Let them come.”

“You don’t understand,” Hartmann pulled out a photograph—a blurry image of figures in the sky. “They’re not using controlled Helvetium like you. They’re using raw, overcharged metal. They can fly faster, higher, longer than should be possible.”

“That’s insane. Overcharged Helvetium explodes.”

“Unless you don’t care about surviving the flight.” The Colonel’s face was haunted. “Their leader calls himself Icarus. He’s already destroyed two of our observation posts. Burned them from the sky.”

Anna studied the photograph. The figures were wreathed in the telltale blue-green glow, but it was wrong—too bright, too wild.

“How many?”

“Five that we know of. But Der Rabe…” Hartmann hesitated. “They have hostages. Children from a school group touring our facility when they attacked.”

The temperature seemed to drop.

“How many children?” Anna asked quietly.

“Eight. Ages ten to twelve.”

Franz’s age. Maria’s nephew’s age. Children who should be learning, playing, not held by madmen drunk on stolen power.

“When will they arrive?”

“Our scouts say tomorrow night. They’re moving slowly, making sure everyone knows they’re coming. They want an audience.”

Anna turned to the Prince. “Evacuate the valley. Get everyone to shelter.”

“Already begun. But Anna—” He caught himself. “Der Rabe. You don’t have to do this. The Swiss will—”

“The Swiss will bring their floating fortresses and turn my valley into a battlefield.” Anna spread her wings. “No. This is my sky. My responsibility.”

She launched before anyone could argue, heading straight for the mill. She found Sister Margareta already there with the Parliament of Owls.

“We heard,” Margareta said simply. “What do you need?”

“Everyone grounded. No Owls in the air tomorrow night.”

“Like hell,” Franz protested. “We can help—”

“You can die. Overcharged Helvetium at those levels? One touch and you’ll be burned alive.” Anna pulled off her mask, letting them see her fear. “Please. I can’t fight them and worry about you.”

“You can’t fight five overcharged fliers alone,” Thomas argued.

“I won’t be fighting. I’ll be rescuing.” Anna moved to her equipment wall. “Eight children. That’s the only priority.”

“What about stopping them?”

Anna turned to Müller, who’d been silent until now. “Can the mill handle more power draw?”

“How much more?”

“Everything. Every watt you can generate.”

The miller’s eyes widened. “That could overload your harness. Burn you up like them.”

“Or give me enough power to match them.” Anna began pulling supplies. “Thomas, I need smoke bombs. Lots of them. Maria, medical supplies for treating burns. Franz—”

“I’m helping,” the boy said firmly.

“Yes. You’re going to help by being my backup plan.” She handed him a special Feather Stone, larger than the others. “If I fail, if I fall, you use this to get the children to safety. One use, but enough lift for all of them if they hold together.”

Franz took it reverently. “You won’t fail.”

“Everyone fails eventually.”

The next night, Anna stood on the highest peak overlooking Vaduz. The town below was dark, evacuated. Only the Owls remained, hidden in strategic positions despite her orders.

She saw them coming from the west—five stars that burned too bright, moving against the wind. As they approached, she could make out details. They wore crude harnesses, nothing like her engineered elegance. The Helvetium was simply strapped to their bodies, glowing so bright it hurt to look at.

The leader—Icarus—carried a bundle. The children, wrapped in a net.

Anna launched, climbing to meet them.

They stopped, hovering a hundred meters away. This close, she could see the cost of their power. Their faces were burned, their hair singed away. The one called Icarus was the worst—half his face was melted, his eyes mad with pain and exhilaration.

“Der Rabe!” he called, his voice carrying across the night. “The famous angel of Liechtenstein! Come to play?”

“Let the children go.”

“After we dance.” He gestured to his followers. “Five against one. Unless your little Owls want to burn with you?”

“This is between us.”

“Everything is between us now. We who fly are gods!” He laughed maniacally. “The ground-crawlers worship or fear us. There is nothing else!”

“You’re wrong,” Anna said. “We fly to serve, not to be served.”

“Serving is for the weak. We are strong!” He released the net.

The children screamed as they fell.

Anna dove without thinking. The Cloud Reapers followed, their overcharged Helvetium giving them devastating speed. She could feel the heat from their approach, smell the burning air.

But Anna had something they didn’t—precision control.

She touched her palms together, shorting her system completely. Her dive became a plummet, faster than even their overcharged flight. She caught the net fifty meters from the ground, then separated her hands.

The power surge from the mill was enormous. Müller was giving her everything. She rose like a rocket, children and all, as the Cloud Reapers shot past, unable to adjust their trajectories quickly enough.

Two of them hit the ground. The explosion lit up the valley like daylight.

Anna set the children on a rooftop where Franz and Maria waited. “Go!” she shouted, then turned to face the remaining three.

They came at her from different angles, trying to box her in. But Anna had spent months learning three-dimensional movement. She spun, dove, climbed in patterns that shouldn’t be possible.

One Reaper got too close. She could see his skin cracking from the heat, could smell the burning flesh. He was dying even as he flew.

“Stop!” she called. “You’re killing yourself!”

“We’re living!” he screamed back, grabbing for her.

Anna barrel-rolled away, his burning fingers missing by centimeters. But the maneuver put her in reach of Icarus.

He grabbed her wing, and the fabric instantly ignited.

Anna triggered the emergency release, shedding the burning wing section. But now she was spinning, asymmetrical, falling.

Icarus dove after her, laughing. “The Raven falls! The Raven burns!”

Anna did something desperate. She reached out and grabbed his Helvetium directly.

The shock was instantaneous. Power beyond anything she’d felt flooded through her, but also pain—incredible, searing pain. She could feel her gloves burning away, her skin blistering.

But she held on, using his power against him. She spun him around, using his own momentum to fling him into his companion. They collided in a burst of blue-green fire.

Anna hit the river hard, the cold water a blessed relief against her burns. She surfaced gasping to see the last Reaper hovering above.

“You could have joined us,” he said sadly. He was younger than the others, maybe twenty. “We could have ruled the skies together.”

“The sky doesn’t want rulers,” Anna replied, treading water. “It wants freedom.”

He looked at his glowing harness, at his burning hands, at the bodies of his companions scattered across the valley.

“I can’t turn it off,” he admitted. “The charge… it won’t stop. I’ll burn until there’s nothing left.”

Anna’s heart broke. “Land. Let me help you.”

“There’s no help for what I chose.” He smiled, a terrible, peaceful expression. “But thank you for trying.”

He rose straight up, higher and higher, until he was just a blue-green star. Then, at the apex, he simply… stopped. The glow went out. He fell like Icarus himself, a dark shape against darker sky.

Anna didn’t watch him land.

She swam to shore where her Owls waited with blankets and medical supplies. Her hands were badly burned, her equipment destroyed, her body exhausted.

“The children?” she asked.

“Safe,” Franz reported. “All of them. You did it.”

“We did it.”

“No,” a new voice said. Colonel Hartmann approached, his face grim. “You did it. The Swiss Federation formally thanks you, Der Rabe.”

“Keep your thanks. Just keep your Helvetium secured.”

“That’s why I’m really here.” He pulled out an official document. “The Swiss government is implementing strict controls on Helvetium. Military use only. Any civilian possession will be illegal.”

Anna laughed bitterly. “So you’ll be the only sky pirates, just legal ones?”

“We’re trying to prevent more tragedies—”

“You’re trying to maintain monopoly.” Anna stood, ignoring her pain. “But it’s too late. The secret is out. People know flight is possible now. They’ll find ways, legal or not.”

Hartmann’s face hardened. “Then we’ll stop them.”

“Will you stop me?”

“You’re… different. You serve a purpose.”

“Everyone serves a purpose. You just don’t like theirs.” Anna turned to Sister Margareta. “We need to prepare. This won’t be the last group. As long as Helvetium exists, people will die trying to fly.”

“Then we teach them to fly safely,” the nun suggested.

“The Swiss won’t allow—”

“The Swiss don’t rule Liechtenstein,” Prince Alois interrupted, arriving with his guard. “Der Rabe has proven that controlled, purposeful flight can serve society. I’m establishing a flight academy. Here. Under Der Rabe’s supervision.”

Colonel Hartmann looked apoplectic. “You can’t—”

“I can. Aerial neutrality includes the right to train our own fliers.” The Prince smiled coldly. “Unless Switzerland wants to invade a peaceful neighbor?”

The Colonel stormed off. Anna sank back onto the riverbank, her burned hands shaking.

“A flight academy?” she asked.

“Someone has to teach them,” Alois said. “Better you than criminals or governments.”

Anna looked at her Owls—her Parliament—gathered around her. Franz with his eager eyes, Maria with her medical wisdom, Thomas with his engineering brilliance, Old Henrik with his surprising grace.

“We’ll need more Helvetium,” she said.

“Leave that to me,” Müller said. “My cousins in Bavaria have been finding strange metal shavings. Not from the main impact, but scattered pieces. Enough to matter.”

“We’ll need structures, safety equipment, training protocols,” Anna continued.

“Leave that to us,” the Owls said in unison.

Anna laughed, then winced as it pulled her burns. “When did I stop being in charge?”

“The moment you taught us to fly,” Sister Margareta said gently. “Now rest. Tomorrow, we build something new. Not sky pirates or sky police, but sky shepherds. Protecting those who would rise.”

As they helped her back to the workshop, Anna looked at the stars. Somewhere up there, more Helvetium drifted through space. Somewhere below, more people dreamed of flight.

The Cloud Reapers had shown the dark side of that dream—power without purpose, freedom without responsibility.

But they’d also shown something else: the hunger for flight was universal. Better to feed it safely than let it starve until it consumed itself.

Der Rabe would fly again. But now she would teach others not just to fly, but to soar responsibly.

The age of flight had truly begun.

Chapter 12: The Great Storm

Four Years Later October 15, 1852

Anna stood in the flight academy’s observation tower, watching her students practice formation gliding. The academy had grown beyond anyone’s imagination—sixty trained Owls, hundreds more in training, and inquiries from across Europe.

At twenty-four, she was no longer the desperate girl discovering flight. She was Master Instructor Rheinberger by day, Der Rabe by night, and somehow managing both lives with the help of her ever-expanding network.

“Storm coming,” Old Henrik announced, climbing the tower stairs with surprising agility for someone approaching eighty. Four years of flying had kept him younger than his years. “Big one. Barometer’s dropping like a stone.”

Anna studied the western sky. Black clouds massed along the horizon, but there was something wrong about them—a green tinge that made her stomach clench.

“Cancel afternoon training,” she ordered. “Get everyone inside.”

“That bad?”

“Look at the birds.”

Henrik looked. Every bird in sight was flying east, away from the storm. Fast.

“Scheisse,” he muttered. “I’ll sound the bell.”

As the academy’s warning bell rang across the valley, Franz burst in. Now fifteen, he’d grown tall and lean, one of their best fliers.

“Anna! Ships on Lake Constance are already going down! The Swiss are sending their fortresses but—” He paused, catching his breath. “The wind’s too strong. Even Helvetium can’t fight this storm.”

Anna was already moving, heading for her equipment room. Her newest harness hung there—version six, with improved heat management and triple-redundant controls.

“You’re not thinking of flying in this,” Henrik said.

“People will need help.”

“You’ll be killed! No one can fly in a storm like—”

The windows exploded inward.

The storm had arrived eight hours early, hitting with the force of a mountain avalanche. The observation tower shook, timbers groaning. Through the shattered windows, Anna could see roofs peeling off houses like paper.

“EVERYONE TO THE SHELTERS!” she roared over the wind.

But even as her students ran for safety, her mind was calculating disasters. How many fishing boats were still on the lake? How many travelers were caught on mountain paths? How many families were in houses that couldn’t withstand this force?

She donned her harness in record time, not bothering with the full safety check.

“Anna, no!” Sister Margareta had arrived, fighting through the wind. “This is suicide!”

“This is what I was made for,” Anna replied, pulling on her mask.

She launched from the tower into chaos.

The wind hit her like a giant’s fist, sending her tumbling. She fought for control, shorting and releasing rapidly, using the storm’s own force to navigate. Rain hammered her like bullets. Lightning split the sky so close she could smell the ozone.

Below, Vaduz was being torn apart.

Anna dove toward the first crisis she saw—a family trapped on a collapsing roof. The parents held three children as tiles flew around them like knives.

She managed to reach them, but carrying five people in this wind was impossible. Instead, she anchored herself to the chimney with her emergency rope and created a human chain, passing the children one by one to a safer building where Owls were waiting.

No time to rest. A barn had collapsed with animals and possibly people inside. She flew there—or rather, was blown there, using the wind rather than fighting it.

Two farmers trapped under beams. Anna used her Helvetium-enhanced strength to lift the wood just enough for them to crawl free. One had a broken leg. She carried him to the medical station Maria had established in the church crypt.

A feather mark had been crammed into the academy door at the height of it: child missing, upper Triesenberg pasture, please. It was the worst kind of call—not a person to be plucked from a known spot, but a search, in the dark, in the storm, the very thing she had built the lamp to answer.

Anna flew the black pasture in passes and thumbed open the iris, laying the cold beam across the grass. For a few sweeps it was glorious—the whole slope leaping silver out of the murk, just as it had the first night she tried it. Then the rain turned on the light the way it always did, only faster: the blue-white she had built her rescues around guttered toward a tired green as the soaked metal flung its charge away by the second. A minute, perhaps. She spent it not searching but memorizing—the line of a stone wall, a lightning-blasted larch, the low dark shape that might be a sheepfold—fixing the whole geography of the slope in her head an instant before the lamp drowned in her hand and went black.

Then there was only the dark, and the wind, and somewhere down in it a child too cold now to do more than whimper.

Anna flew the lines she had memorized, blind, counting them off the way she counted everything. She gave up on seeing and used her ears instead, hanging in the gale with her head turned to it. A lightning-stroke whited out the whole mountain for half a heartbeat—and there, against the sheepfold wall, a small huddled shape. She was on him before the thunder caught up, gathering the boy against the overcharged warmth of her chest, and felt him flinch, and then cling.

She would remember it afterward, bent over her bench rebuilding the ruined lamps: that the very storm which made the light most needful was the storm that killed it fastest, and she had no honest answer for it yet. Tonight the answer had been the lightning, and her counting, and a portion of luck she knew she had not earned. One of these nights the luck would run out. She turned the problem over and over and could not, that winter, think of a lamp that the rain could not drink dry.

The night became a blur of rescues:

A pregnant woman in labor, carried to the midwife through horizontal rain

Children swept into the flooding Rhine, plucked from the torrent seconds before drowning

An elderly couple in a mountain cabin, roof gone, Anna herself becoming their shelter for twenty minutes until help arrived

Travelers on the road, their carriage overturned, horses screaming

Fire in the bakery, despite the rain, spreading to adjacent buildings

The church steeple falling, Anna catching it and redirecting its fall away from fleeing citizens

Her harness began overheating by midnight. The constant shorting and releasing, combined with rain that turned to steam on contact with the hot copper, was pushing every system beyond its limits.

But the calls kept coming. Feather marks appeared even in the storm—desperate people marking their locations with anything they could find.

“Twenty-seven,” she counted to herself, delivering another rescued child to safety. “Twenty-eight. Twenty-nine.”

Franz appeared beside her, fighting through the wind with his glider. “Anna! You have to stop! You’re glowing!”

She looked down. He was right. The Helvetium was so overcharged it was visible through her suit, blue-green light pulsing with each heartbeat.

“More people—” she started.

“The other Owls are handling it! We have forty fliers out there!”

“In this storm? I ordered—”

“You taught us to help! So we’re helping!” He grabbed her arm. “But you’re going to explode if you don’t cool down!”

Anna wanted to argue, but another crisis caught her eye—a house sliding toward the cliff edge, an entire family visible through the windows.

She tore away from Franz and dove.

The house was already half over the edge when she reached it. No time for subtlety. Anna flew straight through the window, grabbed two children, and flew out the other side. Back for the parents. Back for the grandmother. Back for—

The house went over.

But the baby’s crib had caught on a root, dangling above the abyss. Anna dove after it, catching the crib just as the root snapped. The baby wailed, alive and furious.

She delivered the infant to its sobbing mother and turned for the next rescue, but her vision blurred. The heat from her harness was cooking her inside her suit.

“Thirty-seven,” she mumbled, pulling a shepherd from a collapsed shelter.

“Forty-one,” carrying medicine through the storm to trapped injured.

“Forty-five,” forming a human bridge across a flooded street for a crowd to cross.

“Forty-seven—”

Her shorting system failed.

Suddenly Anna was rising uncontrollably, the Helvetium fully charged with nowhere to discharge. She shot upward into the storm’s heart, lightning crackling around her. The wind spun her like a leaf.

She reached for her emergency release, but her hands wouldn’t work—the burns from the Sky Pirates had never fully healed, and the night’s abuse had reopened them.

Higher and higher, until the storm was below her and stars appeared above. The air was too thin to breathe. Ice formed on her mask.

This is how I die, she thought distantly. Like Icarus. Flying too high.

But then she remembered Müller’s mill, still turning somewhere below, still sending its sympathetic power. If she could disrupt that connection…

Anna did the only thing she could think of. She grabbed her main spine bar—the primary Helvetium strip—and twisted it. Hard.

The metal bent, its resonance changing. The connection to the mill severed.

Anna fell.

Not flew. Fell. Tumbling through the storm, no power, no control, just gravity reclaiming its own.

She managed to deploy her emergency wings—unpowered fabric that turned her fall into a barely controlled glide. She hit the Rhine hard, the cold water a shocking relief against her overheated body.

Strong hands pulled her to shore. Franz, Thomas, Maria, Henrik—all her senior Owls had formed a rescue chain.

“Forty-seven,” Anna mumbled through broken lips. “Saved forty-seven.”

“You saved them,” Maria confirmed, checking her injuries. “And the other Owls saved sixty more. Over a hundred people alive because of what you taught us.”

Anna tried to sit up, failed. “The storm—”

“Passing. It’s almost dawn.” Sister Margareta knelt beside her. “You flew for nine hours straight. That should be impossible.”

“Everything we do is impossible,” Anna whispered, then lost consciousness.

She woke three days later in her own bed. Her father sat beside her, holding her bandaged hand.

“Papa?”

“Welcome back, little owl.” His eyes were red with tears. “We thought we’d lost you.”

“The people—”

“Are singing your praises in the streets. Der Rabe saved forty-seven in one night. The Owls saved dozens more. Only six deaths in the entire valley—there should have been hundreds.”

Anna tried to process this. “My harness?”

“Destroyed. Thomas is building you a new one. Version seven, he calls it. Better heat management.” Johann squeezed her hand gently. “But Anna… you can’t do this again. Your body can’t take it.”

She knew he was right. She could feel the damage—pulled muscles, burned skin, stressed bones. Twenty-four years old and she felt ancient.

“That’s why we teach others,” she said quietly.

“Yes. But who teaches the teacher to stop?”

Before she could answer, Franz entered with news that changed everything.

“Anna! The Austrian Emperor wants to meet Der Rabe! He’s offering official recognition and… and he wants to establish flight academies across the Empire!”

Anna closed her eyes. The storm had done more than test her limits—it had proven the concept. Organized aerial rescue could save lives on a massive scale.

“Tell the Emperor,” she said slowly, “that Der Rabe works for everyone or no one. But Anna Rheinberger, Master Instructor, would be happy to discuss curriculum.”

Franz grinned and ran to spread the news.

“You’re going to teach the Austrians to fly?” her father asked.

“I’m going to teach everyone to fly. Or at least, teach the teachers who will teach others.” She managed a smile. “The storm showed what’s possible when people work together in the air. Imagine that coordination across all of Europe.”

“Imagine the wars,” Johann said darkly.

“Or imagine the peace, when everyone can fly above borders.”

Her father kissed her forehead. “Always the optimist, even broken and burned.”

But Anna was already thinking ahead. The storm had nearly killed her, but it had also proven her life’s work. The Owl Network had saved a hundred lives. What could a thousand Owls do? Ten thousand?

The age of flight was expanding, and she would guide it.

Even if it killed her.

Chapter 13: The Parliament of Owls

Seven Years Later 1859

The feather marks no longer came to Anna.

That was the change she felt most keenly in the years after the Great Storm—not in her body, though her body had begun to keep its own accounts now, but in the new quiet of her patrol routes. For more than a decade the black feathers had been hers to find: tucked under bridges, nailed to trees, weighted with stones at the old oak crossroads, each one a stranger’s need pressed into her hands at midnight. Now they came first to the orphanage, where two of Margareta’s younger nuns sorted them by morning light; or to the mill, where Thomas kept a duty roster pinned beside the water wheel; or to the academy on the terraced hillside above Vaduz, where any of forty trained Owls might answer a call before Anna had finished her breakfast.

She told herself this was precisely the point. She had built the network so that no desperate note would ever again hang on whether one tired woman happened to be flying past. And it was working. A child gone through the ice near Schaan was home and dry within the hour, fetched by two Owls who had drilled that exact rescue a dozen times. Flood season no longer filled the valley’s graveyards. In Feldkirch across the Austrian border, and as far away as the quiet Bavarian valley where Müller’s cousins had gathered their scattered grams of Helvetium, there were Owls now who had never met Der Rabe and never would, answering their own feather marks beneath their own dark skies.

Anna flew less each season, and pretended not to notice that she did.

It was the cold that told on her first. A night’s flight had always left her aching; now the ache settled into her knuckles and stayed, a dull weather that no longer passed with morning. She found herself wintering on the ground, teaching from a stool in the academy’s long workshop while younger hands did the flying. She minded less than she had feared. There was a pleasure she had not expected in it—watching a fourteen-year-old’s face the first time a charged strip lifted under her palm, slow and certain as a soap bubble, and seeing there the girl she herself had been on a clockmaker’s bench, breathing on a shaving to watch it drift sideways like a dandelion seed.

She taught them the rings the way she had taught herself: in the dark, blind, a hundred times and a hundred more, until their fingers found rise and short and level without their eyes. “A rope is an honest liar,” she told each new class, and made them drill tethered until they hated her for it. Not one of them had yet truly fallen. She meant to keep it that way as long as she was able.

The Swiss, meanwhile, had stopped pretending.

Colonel Hartmann’s name reached the academy in reports now, rather than in glimpses. He had risen high in Bern, and the Helvetium Defense Force had become something nearer an empire than a constabulary. Where once the Swiss had guarded a mountainside, they ran foundries. Thomas brought sketches smuggled out by sympathetic workers: platforms larger than barns, then larger than churches, each meant to hang in the air on enough caged Helvetium to lift a village.

“He isn’t hunting fliers anymore,” Thomas said, spreading the drawings across the workshop bench. “He’s building a sky that belongs to governments. One a poor man could never afford to enter.”

Anna studied the lines of it—precise, beautiful, terrible—and thought of a young man writing in a ledger by lantern-light, promising Bern its number. He had spent his life trying to gather every grain of the gift back into one accountable place. She had spent hers giving it away, one frightened child at a time. Neither of them, she suspected, would live to see which way the sky finally tipped.

“Then we keep teaching,” she said. “A thing that everyone knows how to do cannot be owned. Let them build their fortresses. They cannot un-teach a valley how to fly.”

What comforted her most, in those years, were the boys.

She would not have said it aloud—they were her students, her Owls, her charges—but in the privacy of her own mind they were the boys, the way Franz and Andreas had been the boys: the children she had caught falling and so made hers. They were not children any longer. Franz Kellner was a grown man now, with a reconnaissance flier’s steady nerve and the same fierce certainty he’d carried at the bedroom window the night he first saw her cross the fields. The orphanage foundlings had become carpenters and millwrights and schoolmasters—ordinary men who happened to know the true weight of the sky. She watched a class of them drilling formation turns above the Rhine one autumn evening, the low gold light on their wings, and felt a pride so sharp it frightened her.

They were Liechtenstein’s sons. Someday—not soon, she prayed, but someday—the Confederation would call, the way it called every generation, and the principality would muster its small handful of men and send them off to fight in someone else’s war. Eighty soldiers, give or take a hard winter. And she would know every name; she had taught half of them to read the wind.

Let it not be soon, she thought, and turned the lamp down, and did not let herself finish the thought.

The girl came in the spring of 1860.

Margareta brought her up the hill herself, more slowly than she had once climbed it, leaning on a cane she pretended was an affectation. The child beside her was small and quick and watchful, perhaps thirteen, with chapped hands and a way of looking at the academy’s gliders as though she were already taking them apart in her head.

“This is Sophia,” the old nun said. “From Schaan. She built herself a glider out of a barn door and stolen harness leather, and broke her arm proving it would fly.” Margareta’s eyes were wet and shrewd and delighted, exactly as they had been at the crossroads thirteen years before. “She wouldn’t stop trying. I told her there was a woman up here who never could either.”

Anna knelt—her knees protested; she ignored them—and looked into the girl’s face. She knew it at once: the hunger, the impatience, the particular loneliness of someone born wanting an impossible thing in a world built for ordinary ones. She had met this child before. She had been this child.

“You broke your arm,” Anna said.

“It flew first,” Sophia answered, lifting her chin. “The arm was after.”

Behind the mask of her years and her aching joints, Anna smiled.

“Then you had better come inside,” she said, “before you teach yourself something that kills you. I learned it all the hard way. There’s no reason under heaven you should have to.”

She did not know, that spring afternoon, that she was looking at the next Der Rabe. She knew only what Margareta had known at the crossroads so long ago: that the weight had always been too much for one pair of hands, and that here, unlooked-for, was another pair reaching out to take it.

It was enough. It had always been enough.

Chapter 14: Arthritis

Three Years Later March 1863

Anna’s hands wouldn’t stop shaking.

She sat at her workbench in the flight academy, trying to repair a student’s control mechanism. The tiny screws blurred before her eyes. Her fingers, once so precise they could disassemble a watch in darkness, fumbled with the simple tool.

The screwdriver clattered to the floor.

“Damn it,” she whispered, flexing her swollen knuckles. The arthritis had been growing worse for two years, but this morning was the worst yet. Every joint screamed when she moved.

“Let me,” a gentle voice said. Sixteen-year-old Sophia picked up the screwdriver. She was Anna’s most promising student—small, quick, with an intuitive understanding of flight that reminded Anna of herself at that age.

“I can manage,” Anna said stiffly.

“I know you can. But you don’t have to.” Sophia began the repair with steady hands. “You taught me that, remember? ‘We fly together or not at all.’”

Anna watched the girl work, seeing her own past in those deft movements. Sophia had appeared three years ago, an orphan from Schaan who’d built her own glider from stolen materials. Sister Margareta had brought her to Anna, saying simply, “I found another you.”

“There,” Sophia finished. “Would you check my work?”

Anna examined the mechanism. Perfect. Better than perfect—the girl had improved the design while fixing it.

“You added a secondary spring,” Anna observed.

“For redundancy. You always say—”

“‘One is none, two is one.’” Anna smiled despite the pain. “Good work.”

Franz entered, now twenty-nine and Der Rabe’s primary reconnaissance flier. “Anna, we have a problem. The Swiss are testing something new. Something big.”

Anna stood, her knees protesting. “How big?”

“They’re calling it an air-ship. Not just a platform but a true vessel. Our spies say it can carry fifty people.”

“Fifty?” Anna moved to the window, her gait stiff. “That’s not military, that’s…”

“Transportation. Commerce. They’re planning regular routes between cities.” Franz’s expression was grim. “The age of individual flight is ending. The age of mass flight is beginning.”

Anna flexed her aching hands. How could she respond to this? She could barely hold her control rings anymore. Last night’s rescue—a simple medical supply delivery—had left her exhausted.

“Gather the senior Owls,” she said. “We need to discuss—”

Pain shot through her hands like lightning. The cup of tea she’d been reaching for crashed to the floor.

Sophia was there instantly, checking Anna’s hands. “They’re completely swollen. You need Doctor Weber.”

“I need to fly,” Anna said stubbornly.

“No,” Franz said firmly. “You need to rest. And…” He hesitated. “You need to choose.”

“Choose?”

“Your successor. Someone needs to be Der Rabe when you can’t.”

The words Anna had been avoiding for months hung in the air.

“I can still fly,” she said weakly.

“You can barely walk this morning,” Franz countered, not unkindly. “Anna, you’ve given twenty years to this. Your body is telling you it’s time.”

That evening, Anna sat in the orphanage chapel with Sister Margareta, now seventy and moving slowly herself.

“I don’t know how to stop,” Anna admitted. “When I’m not flying, who am I?”

“You’re Anna Rheinberger. Teacher. Innovator. The woman who gave humanity wings.” Margareta took Anna’s swollen hands gently. “That’s enough for any life.”

“But people still need Der Rabe.”

“Then give them Der Rabe. Just not you wearing the suit.”

Anna was quiet for a long moment. “Sophia.”

“I thought so too. She has the skill, the heart, the dedication.” Margareta smiled. “And she already knows.”

“Knows what?”

“Who you are. She’s known for a year. Worked it out from the flight patterns, the timing, the fact that you’re never around when Der Rabe appears.”

Anna laughed despite herself. “Smart girl.”

“Smart enough to be the next Raven.”

Over the following weeks, Anna began training Sophia privately. Not just in flight techniques but in the philosophy of Der Rabe.

“We don’t fly for glory,” Anna explained, fitting Sophia with a modified harness. Her own hands shook too much to do the fine adjustments, so Thomas helped.

“We fly to serve,” Sophia recited.

“But more than that. We fly to show others they can rise above their circumstances. Every rescue is a reminder that help exists, that the community cares.”

Sophia nodded, then surprised Anna by asking, “What about the Swiss air-ships?”

“What about them?”

“Should Der Rabe oppose them? They represent centralized power, everything we fight against.”

Anna considered, flexing her aching fingers. “Not everything new is evil. Not everything big is bad. The air-ships could help people too—imagine evacuating a whole village before a flood, or bringing food to isolated communities.”

“But they could also bring armies.”

“Yes. Which is why we need Owls everywhere. Not to fight the air-ships but to ensure they’re used well.” Anna stood with difficulty. “Your generation will face challenges I can’t imagine. Skies full of vessels, not just individuals. You’ll need to adapt.”

“We will. But Anna…” Sophia hesitated. “Will you still teach?”

“As long as my mind works, even if my hands don’t.”

The transition happened gradually. Sophia began taking the easier rescues while Anna handled the complex ones. Then it reversed—Anna advising while Sophia flew.

The night Sophia first wore the complete Der Rabe suit, Anna felt a mix of pride and loss that threatened to overwhelm her.

“How do I look?” Sophia asked through the plague doctor mask.

“Like a nightmare,” Anna said. “Perfect.”

They stood on the academy roof, master and student, past and future.

“Any final advice?” Sophia asked.

Anna thought of all she’d learned—twenty years of flight, rescue, discovery, loss. How to sum it up?

“Trust the wind,” she said finally. “Trust your equipment. Trust your training. But most of all, trust the people below. They want to help as much as you do. Let them.”

Sophia nodded and launched into the night. Anna watched her go, the blue-green glow fading into darkness.

Franz appeared beside her. “You did good.”

“She’ll be better than me.”

“Different than you. That’s what we need.” He helped her down from the roof, her joints protesting every step. “The world’s changing. Helvetium’s everywhere now. The Swiss have their air-ships. The Austrians are building their own. Even the Americans are experimenting.”

“And we have the Owls. Hundreds of them, across Europe.”

“Thanks to you.”

“Thanks to all of us.”

That night, Anna sat at her workbench, trying once more to hold her tools. Her hands wouldn’t cooperate, but her mind was sharp as ever. She began dictating to Franz, who wrote quickly.

“‘On the Principles of Gravitational Negation and Their Practical Applications for the Common Good, by A.R. Schweizer.’” She smiled. “Chapter One: Discovery.”

She would tell it all—the science, the techniques, the philosophy. Everything except her name. Let Der Rabe remain a mystery. Let the knowledge spread freely.

Outside, Sophia flew through the night, the new Der Rabe answering feather marks with grace and power. The tradition continued, the legend lived, the network thrived.

Anna flexed her arthritic hands one more time, then accepted what they could no longer do. She had other work now—preserving knowledge, training teachers, preparing for a future where everyone could fly.

Her hands had built the age of flight. Now her mind would guide it.

The next morning, she found a gift on her workbench—new tools, modified with thick handles her arthritic hands could grip. A note was attached:

“For the hands that gave us wings. —Your Parliament”

Anna picked up a tool. It fit perfectly in her swollen grip. She could work again, differently but effectively.

She began designing the next generation of flight harnesses, ones that could be operated by anyone—the young, the old, the disabled. Because everyone deserved the sky.

Her flying days were ending. Her teaching days had just begun.

Chapter 15: The Final Preparation

June 15, 1866

Anna stood in the town square watching Liechtenstein’s army—all eighty men—prepare to march. They looked so young in their blue uniforms, rifles gleaming in the morning sun. Most were farmers’ sons, clockmakers’ apprentices, boys who should be tending fields or learning trades, not marching to war.

At thirty-eight, Anna felt every year in her aching joints as she watched them form ranks. Her arthritis had worsened through the spring, but something else drove her to the square—a premonition she couldn’t shake.

“They’re sending our boys to guard the Stilfserjoch Pass,” her father said beside her. Johann was seventy now, nearly blind, but he’d insisted on coming to see the soldiers off. “Against the Italians, they say. As if eighty men could stop an army.”

“They won’t have to fight,” Anna said, though she wasn’t sure she believed it. “It’s just a show of support for Austria.”

Franz approached, now thirty-two and Der Rabe’s official successor as chief instructor. “Anna, Sophia wants to know if she should follow them.”

“No,” Anna said quickly. “This is military business. Der Rabe doesn’t interfere in wars.”

But even as she said it, she was calculating. The Stilfserjoch Pass was forty miles south. In her prime, she could have flown it in two hours. Now? With her degraded equipment and arthritic hands?

“Besides,” Franz continued, “your harness is in no condition for long flights.”

He was right. Anna’s last harness—version twelve—hadn’t been properly maintained in two years. Sophia had her own equipment now, the newer, better designs. Anna’s gear was practically a museum piece, held together by patches and prayers.

Captain Jakob Holzer, commanding the tiny force, called for silence. He was twenty-five, younger than some of his men, but he carried himself with quiet authority.

“Men of Liechtenstein,” he began. “We march not for conquest but for duty. We protect our borders, nothing more. With God’s grace, we’ll all return safely.”

Anna noticed young Wilhelm among the troops—not her old suitor, who’d married years ago, but his nephew. The boy was seventeen, Franz’s student at the flight academy before conscription called.

“Stay together,” the Captain continued. “Watch for each other. Remember—we are Liechtenstein. We may be small, but we stand tall.”

The crowd cheered, but Anna heard the worry beneath it. Everyone knew the Austro-Prussian tensions were about to explode. This “Seven Weeks’ War” the newspapers predicted would be brutal and swift.

As the soldiers began their march, Anna made her decision.

That night, she stood in her old workshop, now mostly unused. Her father had retired, the business sold. But she’d kept this space, filled with twenty years of flight equipment evolution.

Her last functional harness hung on the wall like a relic. The leather was cracked, the copper green with corrosion. The Helvetium still glowed faintly—the sympathetic connection to Müller’s mill had never fully broken—but several pieces were missing, cannibalized for student equipment.

“You can’t be serious,” Sophia said from the doorway. She wore the current Der Rabe suit, sleek and efficient, everything Anna’s old equipment wasn’t.

“I’m not going as Der Rabe,” Anna said, pulling the harness down. “Just… an observer.”

“With equipment that could fail at any moment? With hands that can barely grip the controls?” Sophia moved closer. “Anna, please. Let me go.”

“No. You’re needed here. If the war spreads, Vaduz will need Der Rabe.” Anna began checking the straps, her swollen fingers fumbling with buckles. “I trained most of those boys. Franz trained them. They’re our students, our Owls.”

“They’re soldiers now.”

“They’re children playing at war.” Anna’s voice cracked. “Someone should watch over them.”

Sister Margareta arrived, now ancient but still sharp. “I heard what you’re planning.”

“Are you here to talk me out of it too?”

“No. I’m here to help you prepare.” The old nun pulled out a medical kit. “Bandages for your hands. Padding for the straps where they’ll cut into arthritic joints. Pain medication that won’t make you drowsy.”

“Margareta…”

“You gave them wings, Anna. It’s only right you see them through this.” She began modifying the harness with practiced efficiency. “But promise me—observation only. No heroics.”

Anna promised, though they both knew how little her promises meant when lives were at stake.

Over the next week, Anna quietly prepared. She tested the harness in short flights, never more than an hour. The equipment held, barely. The sympathetic charging still worked, though inefficiently. She could fly, but it hurt—every movement, every control adjustment sent fire through her joints.

Thomas built her new control rings that required less grip strength. Maria prepared medical supplies that Anna could carry despite her limitations. Old Henrik, now eighty-seven and still occasionally gliding, gave her his own emergency Feather Stone.

“Just in case,” he said. “Though at my age, ‘emergency’ is every morning I wake up.”

The news from the front was confused. Austria was fighting Prussia and Italy simultaneously. The war was indeed swift—Prussia’s modern army was crushing Austria’s traditional forces. But no word came from the Stilfserjoch Pass where Liechtenstein’s eighty stood guard.

On August 20th, Anna couldn’t wait any longer.

She stood on the academy roof at midnight, wearing her ancient harness for what she knew would be the last time. Every strap hurt. Every breath was labored. The Helvetium glowed uncertainly, like a candle in wind.

“Three days,” she told Franz. “If I’m not back in three days, send Sophia.”

“Anna—”

“Someone needs to know what happened to them. Good or bad, Liechtenstein needs to know.”

She launched before he could argue further.

The flight south was agony. Anna had to stop every hour to rest, landing in forests and fields, flexing her burning hands. The harness creaked ominously. One of the wing struts snapped over Feldkirch—she bound it with rope and kept flying.

By dawn, she could see the Stilfserjoch Pass.

And the armies massing there.

Not just the eighty from Liechtenstein, but thousands of Italians approaching from the south. Her boys were catastrophically outnumbered.

Anna found a concealed position on a ridge and watched through the morning. The Liechtenstein troops held their position bravely, but they knew they were outmatched. She could see Captain Holzer consulting with his sergeants, probably planning retreat.

Then she saw movement to the east. Another force approaching—but whose? The uniforms were unclear at this distance.

Anna made a decision that violated every promise she’d made. She flew closer.

The eastern force was Austrian, but they were retreating, not advancing. Pursued by Prussians. They would run right into the Liechtenstein position, bringing the war with them.

Captain Holzer would have to choose—abandon the pass and retreat, or stand and likely die.

Anna landed near their camp as sunset approached, staying hidden but close enough to observe. She heard Holzer addressing his men.

“The Austrians will be here by morning. The Prussians follow. We could retreat now, return home safely.”

“But sir,” young Wilhelm spoke up, “we were sent to guard the pass.”

“Against Italians. Not the entire Prussian army.”

The men were quiet, processing this.

“We stay,” an older sergeant said. “We gave our word.”

The others nodded agreement. Eighty men choosing duty over survival.

Anna wanted to scream at them to run. These weren’t heroes from legend—they were boys from Vaduz who’d learned to fly at her academy, who’d drawn feather marks as children, who had families waiting at home.

That night, she flew reconnaissance patterns, marking enemy positions. She couldn’t fight, couldn’t change what was coming. But she could watch. She could witness.

She left warning signs where Holzer would find them—branches arranged to show enemy numbers and directions. Not enough to change the outcome, but perhaps enough to help them survive.

As dawn broke on August 22nd, Anna watched from her ridge as history unfolded. The Austrians reached the pass, the Prussians close behind. The Liechtenstein force should have been swept aside.

But Captain Holzer had used Anna’s warnings wisely. He’d positioned his men not to fight but to guide—creating a safe corridor for the Austrian retreat while avoiding direct engagement with the Prussians.

It worked. The Austrians passed through. The Prussians, focused on their main enemy, ignored the tiny Liechtenstein force.

By noon, the crisis had passed. Eighty men had held their position, done their duty, and somehow survived.

Anna was preparing for one last reconnaissance flight when her harness finally failed.

Not dramatically—no explosion or catastrophic break. Simply, quietly, the main support strap tore.

She had perhaps thirty seconds of flight left.

Anna launched anyway, climbing as high as she could. She saw the Liechtenstein troops beginning their march home, all eighty accounted for. She saw Captain Holzer at their head, young Wilhelm beside him carrying the banner.

Then her equipment died completely.

Anna fell toward the trees, her emergency wings barely slowing her descent. She crashed through branches, her old body taking impacts that would have been nothing in her youth but were agony now.

She landed hard in a clearing, her left leg bent wrong, ribs cracked, breathing labored.

This was how it would end. Not in glory but in a foreign forest, watching over boys who didn’t even know she was there.

But as consciousness faded, she heard voices. German, with a Vaduz accent.

“Someone’s here! They fell from the sky!”

“Mein Gott, it’s… it’s Der Rabe!”

The boys she’d trained. The boys she’d protected. The boys who were now carrying her.

As they lifted her, Anna managed to whisper, “How many?”

“What?” Captain Holzer leaned close.

“How many… made it?”

“All of us. All eighty.” He paused. “No—eighty-one now. You’re coming home with us.”

Anna smiled behind her broken mask as darkness took her.

Eighty-one. The history books would wonder about that number.

Let them wonder.

Chapter 16: The 81st Soldier

Anna drifted in and out of consciousness, aware of movement, voices, the rhythm of marching feet. Her body was a symphony of pain—ribs definitely broken, leg possibly fractured, burns from the overheated harness eating at her skin.

“Keep her steady,” Captain Holzer’s voice. “Wilhelm, support her head.”

“Should we remove the mask?” someone asked.

“No,” Holzer said firmly. “Der Rabe keeps the mask until Der Rabe chooses otherwise.”

Through the plague doctor mask’s cracked lenses, Anna saw faces she recognized. Boys she’d taught to read wind patterns. Young men who’d drawn feather marks as children. Her extended family of Owls, now soldiers, carrying her home.

They’d fashioned a stretcher from rifles and uniform jackets. Someone had splinted her leg with surprising skill—Maria’s nephew, she realized, who’d learned field medicine at the academy.

“Captain,” a sergeant whispered. “If the Prussians see us carrying… this… they might think we’re harboring partisans.”

“Then they’ll think correctly,” Holzer replied. “Der Rabe has protected Liechtenstein for twenty years. Now we protect Der Rabe.”

Anna tried to speak, but only managed a wheeze.

“Save your strength,” Wilhelm said gently. “We’ve sent a runner ahead. The whole valley will know we’re bringing you home.”

No, Anna thought desperately. The secret—

But as the march continued, she heard the soldiers talking quietly among themselves.

“Remember when Der Rabe saved my sister from the river?”

“My family’s farm would have been destroyed without the Owl Network’s help during the floods.”

“I learned to glide at the academy. Never knew it was Der Rabe teaching us until today.”

They knew. Somehow, they all knew.

On the second day of the march, Franz Kellner appeared on the path ahead. Not her Franz—that Franz was back in Vaduz. This was his cousin, serving with the 80. The man studied Anna’s broken form, then suddenly stopped.

“The scar,” he breathed.

“What?” Holzer asked.

Franz pointed to Anna’s visible hand, where an old burn scar traced across her palm—the mark from grabbing overcharged Helvetium during the Sky Pirates incident.

“I saw that scar every week at the academy. When Instructor Rheinberger taught advanced maneuvers.” His voice was full of wonder. “It’s her. It’s Anna.”

The column stopped. Eighty young men stared at their broken teacher.

“Instructor Rheinberger is Der Rabe?” Wilhelm whispered.

Captain Holzer knelt beside the stretcher. Gently, respectfully, he asked, “May we remove your mask? You’re among friends.”

Anna managed the slightest nod.

Careful hands lifted the plague doctor mask away. Anna’s face, weathered by twenty years of flight, marked by pain but still defiant, gazed up at her students.

“Hello, boys,” she croaked.

Some wept. Some saluted. Young Franz Kellner simply said, “We should have known. You were always there when we needed you.”

“As were you,” Anna whispered, looking at their uniforms, their brave, tired faces. “All eighty of you.”

“Eighty-one,” Captain Holzer corrected firmly. “We left Vaduz with eighty. We return with eighty-one.”

The march home took three more days. Word spread ahead of them like wildfire—the 80 were returning, all safe, and they brought Der Rabe with them.

But the soldiers closed ranks. When curious villagers in Balzers tried to see who they carried, the men formed a protective wall.

At the Swiss crossing, the officer who came out to count them was old now—narrow still, a ledger tucked under his arm from habit more than need. Colonel Hartmann walked the length of the column once, and then again, his eyes moving from face to face the way they had once moved across a mountainside, accounting for every fragment. He stopped at the stretcher. For a long moment he looked at the black wings, the cracked mask, the burn-scarred hand hanging from beneath the blanket.

Captain Holzer met him squarely. “A friend,” he said, “made along the way.”

Hartmann said nothing at first. He had spent the better part of twenty years learning the exact weight of everything that flew, and he knew precisely what lay on that stretcher—the one quantity he had never once been able to enter in a ledger, the gram of the world that had always refused to be counted. A word would stop the column. Here, at a muddy border post, he could finish the work of his whole life.

Instead the old surveyor stepped back and, very deliberately, turned his eyes to the sky. “Eighty,” he said, loud enough for his own men to hear, and made the mark in his book. “Liechtenstein sends home eighty.” He closed the ledger. “Pass.”

And so the eighty-first soldier crossed home into Liechtenstein uncounted—exactly as she had lived.

Anna heard them talking during rest stops, piecing together twenty years of mysteries.

“That’s why she was always exhausted on Mondays—Sunday night was peak rescue night.”

“The workshop injuries she claimed were from clockwork—they were from flights.”

“Remember when she taught us about wind patterns? She said it was for kite flying. Kite flying!”

They weren’t angry about the deception. If anything, they seemed delighted by it, proud to have been taught by Der Rabe herself without knowing.

On the final morning, as they approached Vaduz, Anna forced herself to speak.

“Captain,” she called weakly.

Holzer leaned close.

“When we arrive… don’t reveal… the mask…”

“You want to keep your secret?”

“Not mine. Der Rabe’s. The legend… should remain… mysterious.”

Holzer understood. “What should we say?”

“The truth. You found… a wounded flier. Brought them home. Nothing more.”

“And Anna Rheinberger?”

“Has been visiting… relatives in Bregenz.” She managed a pained smile. “Check the academy records… Sophia filed them… last week.”

The Captain smiled back. “Clever. But Anna—everyone will know.”

“They’ll suspect. Different from knowing. Let them… wonder.”

As they crested the final hill, Vaduz spread before them. The entire town had gathered in the square—thousands of people waiting to welcome their soldiers home.

The crowd erupted as the column appeared. All eighty safe! Families rushed forward. The Prince himself stood ready to welcome them.

But the greatest cheer came when they saw what the soldiers carried—a figure in black leather, wings torn but visible, the plague doctor mask restored to its place.

“Der Rabe!” the crowd chanted. “Der Rabe! Der Rabe!”

The soldiers set the stretcher down gently in the square. Anna, mask hiding her identity once more, raised one shaking hand to the crowd. They roared approval.

Prince Johann II approached. “Der Rabe. Liechtenstein owes you yet another debt.”

Through the mask, Anna whispered, “No debts… between family.”

The Prince leaned closer. “What do you need?”

“Privacy to… heal. And… someone else… to carry on.”

He understood. “Captain Holzer, help me carry our guardian to the castle. My personal physicians will attend—in absolute secrecy.”

As they lifted her, Anna saw Sophia in the crowd, wearing civilian clothes but ready. Their eyes met through the mask’s lenses. Anna nodded slightly. Tonight, Der Rabe would fly again—just not Anna.

They carried her through the cheering crowd. She heard fragments:

“—saved all eighty—”

“—guardian angel of Liechtenstein—”

“—eighty-one returned—”

That last phrase caught and spread. Eighty-one. The mystery that would puzzle historians.

At the castle, as physicians worked on her injuries, Prince Johann asked quietly, “Why? You could barely fly. Your equipment was failing. Why risk everything for a military operation?”

Anna pulled off the mask for the last time, looking at him with exhausted eyes.

“They were my boys,” she said simply. “I taught them to fly. How could I not watch over their first real fall?”

Later, much later, when Anna had been secretly moved to recover at the orphanage, Sister Margareta sat beside her bed.

“So,” the ancient nun said. “The great Der Rabe finally retires.”

“Sophia flies tonight. The legend continues.”

“And Anna Rheinberger?”

“Returns from Bregenz in a month, surprised to hear about the war’s end.” Anna shifted painfully. “My flying days are over, Margareta. The harness is destroyed. My body is broken. My time has passed.”

“Perhaps. But your story?”

Anna considered. Outside, she could hear the celebration continuing—Liechtenstein’s soldiers had returned safely, against all odds, with a mysterious 81st companion.

“Let them wonder,” she said finally. “Every generation needs its mysteries.”

That night, Sophia flew as Der Rabe, visible to all, proving the legend lived on. The crowd cheered, reassured that their protector remained.

But in a quiet room, Anna Rheinberger, thirty-eight years old, creator of human flight, teacher of hundreds, savior of thousands, closed her eyes and smiled.

She had flown to the very end. She had protected her boys. She had come home.

The 81st soldier could finally rest.

Chapter 17: New Wings

One Year Later August 27, 1867

Anna Rheinberger’s Workshop for Precision Mechanics opened on a Tuesday morning with no fanfare. The small shop on Städtle street looked unremarkable—just another craftsman’s establishment in Vaduz’s growing commercial district.

But by noon, a line had formed.

“My daughter wants to learn,” a farmer said, pushing forward a girl of twelve. “She takes apart everything in the house. Drives her mother mad.”

“I’ll teach her to put them back together,” Anna said, smiling. Her hair, now more silver than brown, was pulled back practically. Her hands, still swollen with arthritis but functional with her modified tools, gestured to the workbenches. “Classes start Monday.”

She’d officially “returned from Bregenz” six months ago, walking with a pronounced limp that no one questioned. Everyone knew but no one said. The fiction was maintained perfectly.

The workshop was her father’s final gift—he’d died peacefully in his sleep three months after the soldiers’ return, but not before securing the building and equipment for Anna’s use.

“You were always a teacher,” he’d said near the end. “Even when you thought you were just a flier.”

Now she had twelve students, both boys and girls, learning what she carefully called “precision mechanics and atmospheric navigation.” Everyone understood what that meant.

“Fraulein Rheinberger,” young Agnes Schmidt asked during that first lesson, “is it true you know Der Rabe?”

Anna’s hands didn’t pause in their demonstration of spring tension. “Everyone in Vaduz knows Der Rabe, in their own way.”

“But you’ve met the real one?”

“Have you ever been helped when you needed it most? Then you’ve met the real Der Rabe too.”

The children exchanged glances, not quite satisfied but recognizing a mystery they wouldn’t solve.

That evening, Sophia visited the workshop. She moved differently now—with the careful confidence of someone who flew nightly. The new Der Rabe had been busy, maintaining all the old routes while establishing new ones.

“Three rescues tonight,” she reported. “Routine medical deliveries. The Owl Network handled most of it.”

“Good. That’s how it should work.” Anna was transcribing notes, her modified pen allowing her to write despite her arthritis. “How’s the new equipment?”

“The Mark Seven harness is perfect. The thermal management system you designed prevents any overheating.” Sophia paused. “Anna, there’s something else. The Swiss want to meet.”

Anna looked up sharply. “Military?”

“Commercial. They’re establishing regular air-ship routes and want to coordinate with ‘local aerial assets.’” Sophia smiled. “They mean Der Rabe.”

“Then Der Rabe should meet with them. Not me.”

“They specifically asked for the Master Instructor of Liechtenstein’s flight academy.”

Anna set down her pen. The Swiss had never acknowledged her role officially, maintaining the fiction that Der Rabe was unknown. This was new.

“When?”

“Tomorrow. Colonel Hartmann will attend.”

Anna remembered Hartmann from the Sky Pirates incident. A practical man who understood that controlling flight was impossible—better to guide it.

The meeting took place at the academy. Anna wore her instructor’s uniform, not Der Rabe’s leathers. Hartmann had aged too, his hair white, his face lined.

“Fraulein Rheinberger,” he said formally, then dropped his voice. “Or should I say—”

“Fraulein Rheinberger is fine.” Anna’s tone was pleasant but firm. “I understand you want to discuss air traffic coordination?”

He smiled slightly. “Yes. The skies are getting crowded. We have commercial air-ships, military patrols, and… independent operators.”

“The Owl Network.”

“Precisely. We need protocols to prevent collisions.”

They spent three hours creating what would become the Alpine Aerial Accord—designated flight levels, signal standards, right-of-way rules. Anna insisted on protections for individual fliers, Hartmann wanted military priority, and they compromised on emergency services having ultimate precedence.

“You know,” Hartmann said as they finished, “we could use instructors like you in Switzerland.”

“My place is here.”

“Teaching children to build toys?”

“Teaching children to build dreams.” Anna stood carefully, her leg still painful. “Colonel, how many people fly now because Der Rabe proved it possible?”

“Thousands.”

“And in ten years?”

He considered. “Tens of thousands. Perhaps hundreds of thousands.”

“That’s why I teach children. Today’s toys are tomorrow’s revolution.”

That night, Anna worked in her secret project room—a space even Sophia didn’t know about. Here, she was writing everything down. Not just the technical specifications, but the philosophy, the ethics, the dreams.

The manuscript was titled “On Helping Others Fly” by Anonymous.

She encrypted it in a cipher of her own design, but one she’d taught to her senior Owls. They would decode it when the time was right, when the world was ready for unlimited flight.

Franz visited, now running the main academy. “Anna, I’ve been thinking about the next generation of equipment.”

“Oh?”

“What if we didn’t need Helvetium at all?”

Anna raised an eyebrow. “Impossible.”

“Is it? You taught us that lift comes from pressure differentials. Wings create that naturally. With enough forward speed—”

“You’d need tremendous velocity. More than a human could generate.”

“Unless we had mechanical assistance. Engines. Like the steam engines powering the air-ships, but smaller.”

Anna stared at him. “You’re imagining flight without Helvetium.”

“I’m imagining flight for everyone. Helvetium is rare, controlled, political. But mechanical flight? That could be truly democratic.”

She pulled out fresh paper, her mind racing. “We’d need to redesign everything. Fixed wings instead of flexible. Control surfaces instead of weight-shifting…”

They worked until dawn, teacher and former student now colleagues, designing what would one day be called the airplane.

A month later, Anna received an unexpected visitor.

“May I come in?” Prince Johann asked at her workshop door.

“Your Highness.” She bowed as much as her injuries allowed.

“Please, we’re alone. And I think we’re past formalities.” He entered, looking at the workshop full of half-built gliders and mechanical experiments. “You’re teaching them everything.”

“Everything I know. They’ll surpass me soon.”

“They already have, in some ways.” He pulled out an official document. “This is why I’m here.”

Anna read it, eyes widening. “A patent registry?”

“For flight-related inventions. Based here in Liechtenstein. We’ll become the center of aerial innovation, the place where ideas are protected and shared.” He smiled. “Your father would be proud. His daughter, changing the world from a workshop in Vaduz.”

“The world changes itself. I just gave it wings.”

“No.” The Prince’s voice was serious. “You gave it permission to dream. There’s a difference.”

That evening, Anna stood on the workshop roof—not to fly, she couldn’t anymore—but to watch. The sky was full of lights. Owls with lanterns, practicing night navigation. An air-ship passed overhead, following the agreed flight path. And somewhere, invisible against the stars, Sophia flew as Der Rabe.

Below in the workshop, her students were still working, building their own wings with the dedication of the obsessed.

“Fraulein Rheinberger!” young Agnes called up. “Come see! Wilhelm’s glider is ready!”

Anna climbed down carefully. The boy’s glider was crude but functional, clearly inspired by her designs but with his own innovations.

“Will it fly?” he asked anxiously.

“Only one way to find out. Tomorrow, we test it.”

“But what if it fails?”

Anna smiled, remembering her own first flights, the crashes, the fears, the triumph.

“Then you’ll learn why it failed and build a better one. That’s how we fly—not through perfection but through persistent imperfection.”

The children nodded solemnly, as if receiving wisdom from an oracle.

Which, Anna supposed, she had become. The Oracle of Flight. The teacher of teachers. The woman who gave humanity wings and then taught them how to use them wisely.

That night, she added another chapter to her encrypted manual:

“Flight is not about conquering gravity but negotiating with it. We do not defeat the earth—we borrow the sky. And like all borrowed things, we must return it in better condition than we found it.

Teach them not just to fly, but why they fly. Not just to rise, but to lift others. The sky is vast enough for all, but only if we share it wisely.

Remember: Every Raven was once an Owl. Every Owl was once earthbound. Every earthbound soul has wings—they just need permission to spread them.

—A.R.”

Epilogue: The Feather Mark

April 2, 1890 Vaduz, Liechtenstein

The old woman stood on the hillside above Vaduz as dawn painted the Alps rose-gold. At sixty-two, Anna Rheinberger moved carefully but deliberately, testing the weight distribution of her latest invention—a glider designed for those who couldn’t walk, with seated controls and foot pedals for those with working legs but damaged spines.

“Careful, Aunt Anna,” called Marcus, her grand-nephew, though everyone under forty called her Aunt now. “Doctor Weber says—”

“Doctor Weber is seventy-eight and still telling people what they can’t do,” Anna replied, adjusting a strap. “Hand me that spanner.”

The boy—Franz’s grandson, with the same eager eyes—passed her the tool. Around them, the testing field was full of other experimenters. The Tuesday Morning Club, they called themselves. Elderly Owls and young dreamers, gathering to push the boundaries of flight.

Old Henrik had died five years ago, attempting a barrel roll at ninety-one. He’d succeeded, then landed perfectly, saluted the crowd, and dropped dead with a smile on his face. “The only way to go,” he’d gasped at the end.

“Message for you, Aunt,” Marcus said, holding out an envelope.

Anna recognized the handwriting immediately—Sophia, now thirty-nine and Der Rabe for twenty-three years. Inside was a single line: “Tonight. Midnight. The oak crossroads.”

Anna smiled. She knew what this meant.

That evening, she attended the weekly gathering at the flight academy. The main hall was packed—over three hundred students from across Europe. Franz, grey-haired but still passionate, was lecturing on mechanical propulsion.

“—and with sufficient thrust, even a brick could fly!” he declared, making the students laugh.

Anna sat in the back, unnoticed, just another elderly woman listening. But she saw how many students sketched her portrait in their notebooks. They knew who she was, even if officially Anna Rheinberger was just a workshop teacher who’d never claimed to fly.

Sister Margareta had died the previous winter at ninety-six, but not before seeing her orphanage become the finest technical school in Europe. Her final words to Anna: “You gave them wings. I gave them wisdom to use them. Good partnership.”

At midnight, Anna stood at the oak crossroads where it had all begun. The tree was enormous now, its trunk scarred with thousands of carved feather marks from over the years. A monument to community need and community response.

Sophia descended from the sky, silent as always. With her came twenty other Raven-successors from across Europe—each region had developed its own Der Rabe now, spreading the legend.

“Why did you call me?” Anna asked.

Sophia removed her mask, something she rarely did. “Because tomorrow, everything changes.”

“Oh?”

“The German Empire is announcing human-carrying flight machines. Mechanical, no Helvetium required. They’re calling them ‘aeroplanes.’”

Anna smiled. “Franz’s dream realized.”

“Your dream realized. But Anna… they want to use them for war.”

The smile faded. “Of course they do.”

“What do we do? How does Der Rabe respond to military aviation?”

Anna looked at the assembled Ravens—young people, most born after she’d stopped flying, carrying on a tradition she’d started with desperate leaps in the dark.

“You do what Der Rabe has always done,” she said. “You fly to serve. When they build bombers, you build rescue craft. When they make fighters, you make medical transports. For every weapon they put in the sky, you put something healing.”

“But we’ll be outnumbered—”

“We’ve always been outnumbered. But remember—” Anna pulled out a black feather, one of the original ones from 1847. “We were never about winning. We were about helping.”

She handed the feather to Sophia. “The world is about to discover unlimited mechanical flight. Millions will fly. The sky will become a highway, a battlefield, a marketplace. But as long as someone remembers that we fly to serve, not to be served, Der Rabe lives.”

A young Raven from Vienna asked, “Did you ever imagine it would grow this large?”

Anna laughed, a sound like rustling wings. “I imagined flying fifteen feet to save Franz from a fire. Everything else has been a beautiful accident.”

As the Ravens prepared to leave, Sophia asked, “Will you fly with us? One last time?”

Anna looked at the harness Sophia offered—modern, efficient, safe. Nothing like the contraption she’d built in 1847.

“No,” she said gently. “My flights are dawn tests and memory now.”

But as the Ravens launched into the night sky, Anna pulled out something from her bag—a single Feather Stone, the last one from her original batch, saved for forty-three years.

She activated it.

The familiar lift filled her bones. Not enough to fly truly, but enough to rise, to hover ten feet off the ground, to remember what it felt like to deny gravity’s claim.

She stayed there for exactly one minute—the stone’s full charge—then settled back to earth as gently as a feather.

Marcus was waiting, having followed her secretly.

“Aunt Anna? Was that…?”

“A reminder,” she said. “That impossible things become possible when someone is foolish enough to try.”

They walked home together, the old woman leaning on the boy’s arm. Above them, twenty-one Ravens flew in formation, their Helvetium glowing like stars.

“Tell me about the first flight,” Marcus asked, as he did every week.

“I was nineteen,” Anna began, as she always did. “I found metal shavings in a watch…”

But this time, she told him everything. The true story. The fear, the pain, the joy, the cost. By the time they reached her workshop, dawn was breaking.

“Will you teach me?” Marcus asked.

“I’ll teach you to teach yourself,” Anna replied. “That’s all any teacher really does.”

That afternoon, Anna received a package from America. Inside was a photograph of a mechanical flying machine and a letter:

“Dear A.R. Schweizer, Your book ‘On Helping Others Fly’ has been our inspiration. We have achieved powered mechanical flight. Twelve seconds, one hundred twenty feet. The age of aviation has begun. We thought you should know. —O. & W. Wright”

Anna smiled, filed the letter with thousands of others from around the world, and went back to her workbench where three young girls were waiting to learn about spring tensions.

“Now,” she said, picking up her modified tools with arthritic hands that had once held the controls of humanity’s first flight. “Who wants to learn something impossible?”

Three hands shot up.

The lesson began.

Outside, someone had drawn a new feather mark on the workshop door. Not asking for help, just the symbol itself. A reminder. A promise. A declaration that in Vaduz, in Liechtenstein, in all the places where Owls flew and Ravens watched, help would come to those who needed it.

Anna Rheinberger, clockmaker’s daughter, first human to truly fly, teacher of hundreds, savior of thousands, keeper of secrets and spreader of dreams, continued her work.

She had given humanity wings.

Now humanity would decide how to use them.

But in her workshop, in her town, in her time, she had proven one eternal truth:

We rise by lifting others.

The feather marks would remember, even when the world forgot who drew the first one.

[Found among Anna Rheinberger’s papers after her death in 1895, age 67, written in her hand:]

“I flew. We all flew. And we all will fly. That is enough for any life.”

—Der Rabe The First But Not The Last —

APPENDICES: WORLDBUILDING

Anna Rheinberger’s Private Journal

Hidden beneath the floorboards of the clockmaker’s workshop, Vaduz

15 März 1847

Found the most peculiar metal shavings in Herr Grüber’s pocket watch today. When I dropped my brass tools near them, they twitched like living things. Father would say I’m seeing things from too much close work, but I know what I observed.

The shavings respond to the static from my wool cloth. Reproducible results: - 1 rub = slight movement - 5 rubs = definite lift, lasting 2-3 seconds
- 10 rubs = shaving rises 2cm, hovers for 8 seconds

Must investigate further. Told Herr Grüber his watch needs a week for “delicate adjustment.”

2 April 1847

EXTRAORDINARY DISCOVERY!!!

The metal in the mountains - found it while gathering spring herbs for Mother. A chunk the size of my two fists together, half-buried in scorched earth. The same material as the watch shavings but solid, pure.

First experiment nearly killed me - connected it to Father’s friction wheel and the chunk shot up so fast it pulled me off my feet. Only my grip on the leather strap saved me from being carried into the clouds.

New rule: Always secure the metal before charging. Always.

18 April 1847

Have established mathematical relationships:

Charging Formula: - Static (wool/amber): 2-3x weight lift - Hand-crank dynamo: 10-15x weight lift
- Father’s large friction wheel: 50-75x weight lift - Lightning (theoretical): 1000x+ (must never attempt)

Discharge Rate: - Natural dissipation: -10% per hour at rest - Under load: -20% per hour - In rain/wet: -50% per hour

Built my first practical device - spring shoes with thin plates in the soles. Can leap across the Vaduz main street in a single bound. Told mother I’m practicing “Swiss gymnastics.”

3 Mai 1847

Cannot sleep. My mind races with possibilities.

If a person weighing 120 pounds needs only 4 ounces of charged metal to become effectively weightless… then true human flight is possible. Not just leaping, but sustained, controlled flight.

Sketch: [Wing Harness - First Design] - Helvetium strips along spine and shoulders - Oilcloth wings for control, not lift - Copper wiring throughout - Hand-crank at belt - Total weight: 15 pounds - Helvetium needed: 8 ounces (I have 5 pounds!)

20 Juni 1847

First flight. I am shaking as I write this.

Rose 50 feet above the workshop at midnight. Vaduz spread below me like a map. Could see the Prince’s castle, the Rhine glittering in moonlight, the Swiss mountains beyond.

Almost crashed into the church steeple when a gust caught me. Must add: - Stability fins - Better discharge controls - Face protection (bugs at speed!)

I flew. I, Anna Rheinberger, daughter of a clockmaker, FLEW.

15 Juli 1847

The widow Müller’s son fell into the Schlucher ravine. Everyone said he was lost - the walls are sheer, no way down.

I couldn’t stand it. Donned my harness, covered my face, became someone else. Der Rabe was born from necessity, not plan.

The boy’s face when I descended from the darkness… “Ein Engel!” he cried. An angel.

I am no angel. But I can help.

3 August 1847

The feather marks have started appearing. Simple drawings, desperate requests.

Today I found seven. Could only answer three: - Medicine to the Sutter family ✓ - Rescued the shepherd from the ledge ✓
- Letter to the prisoner in Feldkirch ✓ - Lost climber (too late - found body) - Sick child in Balzers (no medicine to give) - Two more I never reached

Each failure weighs like lead in my chest.

12 September 1847

Sister Margareta knows. Found me on the orphanage roof, half-dead from overcharge.

She said: “You think God gave you wings to carry the world? No, child. He gave you wings to teach others they could fly.”

She’s right. I’ve been thinking too small.

1 Oktober 1847

New invention - The Feather Stones:

Design finalized: - Glass vial (medicine bottle) - Silk-wrapped Helvetium sliver (1 gram) - Leiden jar capacitor (thimble-sized) - Copper pin trigger - Single use, 50-pound lift for 1 hour

Made 20 this week. Left them in marked caches. The network is teaching each other to use them.

15 November 1847

The Owl prototype works!!!

Fixed wing design means almost anyone can fly: - Only 30 grams of Helvetium needed (vs 250g for Der Rabe harness) - Village carpenter can build frame - Requires only static charge - Glide ratio 12:1 with Helvetium assist

Maria the midwife learned in one evening. Franz took three days but now soars like he was born to it. Old Henrik crashed into a haystack six times before succeeding - he laughed like a child.

24 Dezember 1847 - Christmas Eve

The network grows beyond my knowing. Today in the market, I heard a stranger whisper “For the Raven” as he helped an old woman with her parcels.

I’ve started something I cannot control. It terrifies and thrills me.

The Swiss are building something massive across the border - their Helvetium workshops glow all night. War may be coming. But my people, my brave Quiet Wings, they connect villages, save lives, carry hope.

The Great Question: When the powerful have flying fortresses, what defense do the common people have?

Answer: Each other. Always each other.

1 Januar 1848 - New Year’s Day

I know what I must do.

The knowledge cannot remain secret. Not the Helvetium itself - the Swiss will guard that jealously. But the principles of flight, the physics of liberation, the mathematics of freedom.

I will write everything down. Create copies. Send them with the Owls to every university, every workshop, every clever child who dreams of touching the sky.

They may control the metal, but they cannot control the idea.

Tomorrow, I begin my treatise: “On the Principles of Gravitational Negation and Their Practical Applications for the Common Good”

For the Raven. For the Quiet Wings. For everyone who looks up and dreams.

A.R.

[Final entry includes detailed technical drawings of The Owl glider, charge calculations, and network dead-drop locations. The journal binding shows evidence of frequent handling, with feathers pressed between various pages.]

Historical Timeline

The Helvetium Age in Liechtenstein (1847-1866)

1847 - The Year of the Falling Star

January 15, 1847 - Meteorite impacts in the Bernese Alps - Swiss authorities cordon off the area, claiming “avalanche danger” - Secret extraction of Helvetium begins

March 15, 1847 - Anna Rheinberger (19) discovers Helvetium shavings in Herr Grüber’s watch - Begins private experiments with electrostatic properties

April 2, 1847 - Anna finds her own Helvetium chunk in the mountains above Vaduz - Nearly loses control during first charging experiment

April-May 1847 - Anna develops spring-shoes and early flight concepts - Swiss scientists achieve first controlled Helvetium levitation

June 20, 1847 - Anna saves Herr Müller at his mill - he loses fingers, gains a debt - First successful test of wing harness design

July 15, 1847 - Birth of Der Rabe: First rescue (Widow Müller’s son from ravine) - Swiss begin construction of floating platforms

August 1847 - Feather marks start appearing throughout Liechtenstein - Anna creates first Feather Stones for remote assistance - Swiss float their first military observation post

September 12, 1847 - Sister Margareta discovers Anna’s identity - Beginning of organized Raven Network coordination

October 1847 - Failed rescue of shepherd boy leads to hand-crank innovation crisis - European powers begin to notice Swiss “atmospheric experiments”

November 1847 - Anna develops sympathetic charging system with mill - Der Rabe operations become nightly - The Owl glider prototype completed

December 1847 - First Owl Network members trained (Maria, Franz, Old Henrik) - Swiss Confederation declares Helvetium a “national resource”

1848 - The Year of Revolution and Flight

January 1848 - Anna begins “Principles of Gravitational Negation” treatise - Owl Network expands to 12 active members - French spies attempt to infiltrate Swiss Helvetium facilities

February 1848 - Revolution erupts in France - Swiss floating fortresses revealed publicly - Der Rabe prevents Austrian scouts from discovering Liechtenstein Owls

March 1848 - Revolutions spread across German states and Austria - Liechtenstein remains mysteriously stable (Owl Network maintaining order) - Swiss “Helvetium Accords” - limited sales to European powers begin

April 1848 - Anna develops shorting control system after passenger rescue failure - Prince Alois II of Liechtenstein secretly informed of Der Rabe

May-June 1848 - Peak revolutionary period - Der Rabe prevents three assassination attempts in Vaduz - First “Sky Pirates” appear using stolen Helvetium

July 1848 - Anna creates sympathetic communication pairs - Owl Network reaches 30+ members across Rhine Valley - Austrian Empire acquires first Helvetium shipment

September 1848 - Failed Austrian attempt to capture Der Rabe - Liechtenstein formally declares “aerial neutrality” - Anna’s identity suspected by authorities but unproven

December 1848 - European powers sign “Helvetium Limitation Treaty” - Owl Network integrated into Liechtenstein’s informal defense

1849-1855 - The Quiet Years

1849 - Der Rabe operations become routine - Anna trains first female Owls - Helvetium technology spreads to industrial applications

1850 - First commercial Helvetium lift systems in Zurich - Anna (22) briefly considers revealing identity, decides against it - Feather mark becomes official symbol of Liechtenstein mutual aid

1852 - The Great Storm: Der Rabe saves 47 people in one night - Anna develops improved heat management systems - First Helvetium-powered telegraph relay stations

1854 - Crimean War sees first military use of Helvetium vehicles - Liechtenstein remains neutral, Owl Network ensures borders - Anna begins training her eventual successor

1856-1865 - The Mature Network

1858 - 100th documented Owl trained - Der Rabe sightings reported throughout Alpine region - Anna (30) perfects multi-person lifting techniques

1860 - Prince Johann II comes to power in Liechtenstein - Secretly meets Der Rabe, pledges protection of Owl Network - Industrial Helvetium use transforms European manufacturing

1863 - Anna develops arthritis in hands from years of equipment use - Reduces flight operations, focuses on training - Younger Owls take over most rescues

1865 - Austro-Prussian tensions rise - Owl Network placed on alert - Anna (37) prepares for “one last flight”

1866 - The Return

June 15, 1866 - Seven Weeks’ War begins - Liechtenstein mobilizes 80 men to guard Stilfserjoch Pass

June-July 1866 - Der Rabe shadows Liechtenstein forces - Prevents two ambushes through feather warnings - Ensures supply lines remain open

August 23, 1866 - Peace of Prague ends war - Liechtenstein troops begin march home - Anna’s equipment suffers catastrophic failure

August 26, 1866 - The 81st Soldier: Exhausted Der Rabe discovered by returning troops - Franz Kellner (her first Owl) recognizes her immediately - Soldiers close ranks, bring their guardian home

August 27, 1866 - 80 soldiers return to Vaduz with “friend made along the way” - Anna Rheinberger officially retires as Der Rabe - Younger Raven takes up the mantle that very night

Epilogue

1867 - Anna opens public workshop teaching “precision mechanics” - Secretly continues training Owls in advanced techniques - Writes encrypted manual: “On Helping Others Fly”

1870 - Over 200 active Owls throughout Alpine region - Feather mark recognized as symbol of hope across Europe - Anna Rheinberger, clockmaker, noted for her “unusual longevity”

1890 - Anna (62) still seen testing “experimental devices” at dawn - Rumors persist of an elderly woman who leaps impossibly far - The legend of Der Rabe has inspired three generations

“Some say Der Rabe still flies on storm nights. Others say she taught us all to fly, so she no longer needs to. Both are true.” - Liechtenstein folk saying

The Feather Mark System

A Study of Hope, Desperation, and Response

Origin of the Feather Mark

The First Mark - August 3, 1847

Frau Weber, whose son Anna had saved from the ravine, wanted to thank Der Rabe. Not knowing how to reach a legend, she left a black raven feather at the old oak crossroads with a note: “You gave me back my son. Our prayers follow your flight.”

Anna found it on patrol. The feather made her weep.

Evolution of the Symbol

Week 1-2: People left actual feathers Week 3: Someone carved a feather shape in bark Week 4: The drawn symbol emerged:

     /\
    /  \
   /    \
  /  /\  \
 /  /  \  \
/__/    \__\

Simple enough for a child to draw, distinctive enough to recognize instantly.

The Designated Places

Primary Drop Points

1. The Raven Trees - Ancient pines at major crossroads - Marked with three feather carvings at eye height - Hollow at base for protected note storage - Total: 7 trees throughout Vaduz region

2. The Stone Circles - Old shepherd rest points in mountains - Center stone has feather carved deep - Notes weighted with rocks - Total: 12 locations

3. The Bridge Boards - Underside of wooden bridges - Notes tucked between planks - Feathers chalked on support beams - Total: 5 bridges

4. The Chapel Nooks - Small roadside shrines - Notes left with offerings - Feathers drawn in candle soot - Total: 9 chapels

Emergency Markers

Window Signals: - Feather drawn in frost/condensation - Visible from air - Means “urgent, tonight”

Field Marks: - Large feather scraped in dirt - Filled with white stones - Size: 2-3 meters - Visible only from above

The Notes Themselves

Common Formats

The Desperate: “My daughter fell down the old well. Too deep for ropes. Please.” - Location details - Simple problem statement - No signature (shame/fear)

The Grateful: “One year ago you saved my husband. Today our son was born. We named him Raban (raven).” - Updates on past rescues - Offerings of thanks - Often signed

The Hopeful: “Grandmother is trapped by snow in the high cabin. She has food but needs medicine.” - Clear logistics - Realistic requests - Family names included

The Impossible: “Bring my son back from the war.” - Beyond anyone’s power - Left in desperation - Der Rabe keeps these separately

Anna’s Collection Routine

Nightly Patrol Pattern

First Hour After Dark: - Launch from workshop - Fly the Raven Tree circuit - Collect notes in leather pouch - Leave confirmation marks

Confirmation Mark:

    \/
   \  /
  \ \/ /
 \ \  / /
\ \/\/ /
 \/  \/

(Inverted feather in charcoal - “Message received”)

Back at Workshop

Sorting Process:

Immediate Danger: Red wax seal

Trapped persons

Medical emergencies

Time-critical situations

Tonight Possible: Blue thread tied

Reachable locations

Clear weather needed

Within flight range

Needs Planning: Green mark

Complex rescues

Requires equipment

Multiple trips needed

For the Owls: White stone included

Can be handled by network

Teaching opportunities

Community solutions

The Impossible: Black ribbon

Cannot help directly

Saved for prayer/remembrance

Sometimes answered differently

Response Methods

Direct Action

The Night Flight: - Der Rabe appears silently - Completes rescue/delivery - Leaves feather mark in soot/charcoal - Never speaks if possible

Evidence Left: - Single black feather (early days) - Feather mark drawn at scene - Rescued person’s testimony - Changed circumstances

Network Activation

Owl Assignment Note (left at same spot): “Der Rabe has heard. Tomorrow at dawn, watch for Hans the Carter. He owes a debt.”

Feather Token Delivery: - Small wooden disc with burnt feather mark - Given to selected helper - Means “Der Rabe calls your debt” - Tremendous honor to receive

Teaching Solutions

Instruction Leaves: - Sketches of better rope techniques - Maps to hidden supply caches - Warnings about unstable paths - Always signed with feather

Tool Deposits: - Better climbing equipment - Medical supplies - Charged Feather Stones - Left where needed most

The Offerings

What People Leave

Common Offerings: - Bread crumbs (for the “raven”) - Copper coins (for materials) - Candles (to light her way) - Salt (precious in mountains) - Hand-carved feathers (treasured)

Touching Gifts: - Children’s drawings of Der Rabe - Wedding flowers (for blessing) - Baby shoes (from saved children) - Letters teaching her to read better - Poems and songs of thanks

What Anna Takes: - Only coins in desperate need - Children’s drawings (always) - Practical information - Maps of new dangers - Nothing of sentimental value (left for others to see)

Special Variations

Seasonal Adaptations

Winter Marks: - Cut into snow banks - Marked with ashes - Notes in bottles - Cloth flags for visibility

Summer Marks: - Flower petals arranged - Stones in pattern - Carved fresh wood - Chalked on dry stone

Regional Differences

Valley Folk: Elaborate carved marks Mountain People: Simple, efficient scratches Town Dwellers: Secretive, hidden symbols Children: Colorful, decorated versions

The Beautiful Failures

Notes Anna Treasures Most

The Impossible Requests: “Make my father stop drinking.” “Bring morning faster for my scared sister.” “Help me be brave like you.”

She keeps these in a special box, sometimes finding ways to help indirectly - leaving temperance pamphlets, extra candles for night fears, or courage-building notes for children.

The Multiplication Effect

By 1850, people report finding feather marks where Der Rabe never flew - the symbol has become universal for “someone helped when help was needed.” The Owl Network uses it, ordinary people adopt it, it becomes bigger than one flying woman.

Sample Night’s Collection (March 15, 1851)

Tree 1: “Baby coming early, midwife across the valley” - Immediate Tree 3: “Thank you for saving Pavel, here’s his first carved toy” - Gratitude Bridge 2: “Rockslide blocked mountain path, seven families trapped” - For the Owls Chapel 5: “Mother is dying, just want her to see the dawn from the peak one last time” - Impossible but… Stone 8: “Lost my goat, white with black ears, near the falls” - If time allows Tree 7: Drawing of Der Rabe with “I LOVE YOU” in child’s writing - Treasure

Total collected: 18 notes Directly answered: 3 Passed to Owls: 8 Impossible: 5 Saved as treasures: 2

The Weight of Symbols

Anna’s journal, 1852: “They think the feather mark calls Der Rabe. But truly, it calls the best part of themselves - the part that refuses to give up, that dares to hope, that believes someone cares about their troubles. I am just the woman who collects their courage and tries to be worthy of it.”

By 1860, ethnographers note the feather mark has become part of Alpine folk culture, carved into cradles for protection, drawn on doorframes for blessing, taught to children as “the sign that brings help.”

Not because it summons a superhero, but because it reminds people that someone, somewhere, is listening to their troubles and doing their best to help.

Final Protocol

The Last Note (August 26, 1866):

When Anna returns with the soldiers, she finds one final note at Tree 1: “We know who you are. We’ve always known. Rest now. We’ll carry the feathers forward. - Your Owls”

Beside it, Over a 100 small carved wooden feathers, one from each person whose life she’d changed.

She keeps them all.

Helvetium: Technical Properties

Compiled from Swiss Federal Research and Independent Studies, 1847-1848

Sympathetic Resonance & Electrical Storage

Entanglement Phenomenon

When two pieces of similar mass are charged to produce identical tones and allowed to “sing” in harmony for several minutes, they develop a permanent sympathy:

Charging one induces a response in its twin

Both discharge at matched rates regardless of conditions

Physical shock to one causes vibration in the other

Breaking one piece fractures its partner

Distance appears irrelevant to the effect

Practical Applications: Message pairs, synchronized lifting, danger alerts

Power Storage Properties

Unlike voltaic piles which discharge rapidly, charged Helvetium retains electrical potential:

Storage Duration: Days to weeks depending on insulation

Discharge Control: Can release power slowly or in bursts

Capacity: One pound stores equivalent to forty voltaic piles

The Floating Battery Problem: Higher charge means stronger lift, requiring anchoring systems

Note: Charged Helvetium combines three properties - anti-gravity, illumination, and electrical storage - making containment complex but applications numerous.

Basic Properties

Chemical Symbol: Hv
Origin: Celestial (meteorite impact, 1847)
Natural State: Silvery-gray metallic solid
Specific Weight: 7.2 (water = 1)
Melting Point: 1,847°C (by platinum thermometer)
Electrical Conductivity: Superior to copper
Magnetic Properties: Non-magnetic, exhibits anti-gravitational response to electrical excitation

Anti-Gravitational Properties

Lift-to-Charge Relationships

Charge Source | Relative Power | Lift Multiplier | Duration | Visual Effect
Amber & wool friction | Minimal | 2-5x own weight | Minutes | None
Hand-crank magneto | Light | 10-20x own weight | Half to one hour | None
Water wheel dynamo | Moderate | 50-100x own weight | Several hours | Faint blue-green glow
Steam-driven generator | Strong | 200-500x own weight | Half day | Bright glow, readable light
Atmospheric electricity | Extreme | 1000x+ own weight | One day or more* | Blinding radiance

*Often results in violent fragmentation or uncontrolled ascent

Natural Discharge Rates

At rest: One tenth part per hour

Under burden: One fifth part per hour

In wet conditions: Half charge per hour

Physical Characteristics

Mechanical Properties

Hardness: Between iron and steel (4.5 by Mohs method)

Strength: Exceeds wrought iron considerably

Malleability: Workable when heated, brittle when cold

Fracture: Shell-like pattern when broken

Luminescent Properties

Below 50x charge: No visible emission

50-100x charge: Faint blue-green glow, like foxfire

100-200x charge: Steady light sufficient for navigation

200-500x charge: Bright illumination for reading

Above 500x charge: Painful brilliance, leaves afterimages

Color: Always blue-green, intensity varies with charge

Heat: Produces light without warmth - “cold fire”

Working the Metal

Cutting: Requires finest Sheffield steel tools

Filing: Slow progress with best Swiss files

Grinding: Emery wheels and corundum powder

Joining: Cannot be forge-welded; rivets or clamps only

Minimum Useful Quantity: Half a gramme weight

Cautions for Safe handling

Principal Dangers

Over-charging: Pieces may rise beyond recovery

Breakage under charge: Fragments repel with great violence

Wool garments: May cause unexpected charging

Thunderstorms: Charged metal attracts lightning

Tell-tale glow: High charges visible in darkness, reveals position

Floating batteries: Stored power means constant upward force requiring secure anchoring

Recommended Precautions

Earth all pieces before working

Wear leather or silk gloves (never wool)

Keep iron rods nearby for discharge

Never charge beyond three-quarters capacity

Store in lead-lined boxes when electrified

Refinement Methods

Composition of Meteorite

Helvetium content: One eighth to one sixth part

Matrix: Common meteoric iron

Trace metals: Platinum group, rare earths

Extraction Process

Crush meteorite with steam hammer

Apply magnets to remove common iron

Treat with aqua regia (königswasser)

Gray powder precipitates - crude Helvetium

Heat in furnace to fuse into working metal

Yield: One pound refined from eight pounds ore

Grades of Purity

First Quality (Near pure)

For scientific instruments

Behavior most predictable

Price: Dear as gold

Second Quality (Good working metal)

For machinery and vehicles

Reliable for most purposes

Price: Half that of First Quality

Third Quality (Common grade)

For rough work and ballast

Variable properties

Price: Still twenty times silver

Practical Limits

Lifting Capacity

Dust particles: Negligible effect

One gramme: Can lift two hundred pounds (with strong charge)

One pound weight: Can lift twenty tons (theoretical)

Safe working maximum: Five hundred times own weight

Height Limitations

Full effect to one mile high

Half strength at three miles

Nearly powerless above six miles

Absolute ceiling unknown

Mysteries Yet Unsolved

Under Investigation

Effects of prolonged handling on human constitution

Interaction with terrestrial magnetism

Internal structure during electrification

Possibility of storing electricity within the metal

Behavior in vacuum pump experiments

Unexplained Phenomena

Sometimes “remembers” previous charging

Produces musical tones at certain states

Sympathetic Resonance: When two pieces sing at identical pitch for several minutes, they become permanently linked - charging one affects the other across any distance

Resists alloying with common metals

Luminescent Properties: Above 50x charge, emits blue-green light of increasing intensity

Electrical Storage: Retains charge for days or weeks, acting as a voltaic pile

Note: This document compiled from workshop experience and natural philosophy investigations. New properties discovered monthly.

Flight Control Systems

Sympathetic Shorting Method

Anna Rheinberger - November 1847

Revolutionary Discovery

The mill constantly charges my sympathetic pieces. I don’t need to generate lift - I need to CONTROL it.

Old thinking: Short circuits waste power New thinking: Short circuits give me control

System Overview

Ground State (Shorted)

All Helvetium pieces shorted through copper contacts

No lift expression despite constant charge

Heat buildup: ~5°C per minute at contact points

Maximum ground time: 20 minutes before dangerous heating

Flight State (Open Circuit)

Contacts separated = full sympathetic lift

Mill’s constant charging maintains altitude

No heat generation while flying

Can remain airborne indefinitely

Control Transition

Launch: Release all shorts simultaneously = explosive lift

Controlled ascent: Release shorts sequentially

Hover: Partial shorting of select pieces

Descent: Progressive shorting of pieces

Landing: Full short just before ground contact

Technical Configuration

Helvetium Distribution

Main spine bar: 180g (primary lift)

Shoulder pieces: 40g each (stability)

Hip pieces: 25g each (control)

Wrist pieces: 15g each (fine adjustment)

Total: 310g (optimized from original 410g)

Shorting Mechanism

[Helvetium Piece]
      |
[Copper Contact A]----[Spring]----[Copper Contact B]
      |                              |
[Control Cable]                [Ground Path]

Control Positions: - Cable taut = contacts separated = LIFT - Cable slack = spring pushes contacts together = SHORTED - Partial slack = variable lift control

Flight Control Mapping

Right Hand (Altitude Control)

Thumb: Main spine (primary altitude)

Index: Right shoulder (roll control)

Middle: Right hip (forward pitch)

Left Hand (Stability Control)

Thumb: Emergency full short (rapid descent)

Index: Left shoulder (roll control)

Middle: Left hip (backward pitch)

Foot Pedals (Advanced)

Right: Wrist pieces (fine hover control)

Left: Progressive shorting for gentle landings

Operational Procedures

Pre-Flight Ground Operations

Arrive at launch point (shorted, no lift)

Check heat buildup - copper should be <40°C

Verify all shorts engaged - no accidental lift

Maximum prep time: 10 minutes to avoid overheating

Launch Sequence

Stance: Crouched, ready to absorb upward force

Release sequence:

Wrists first (minimal lift)

Hips next (begins rise)

Shoulders (acceleration)

Main spine LAST (full flight)

Total launch time: 0.5 seconds

In-Flight Management

Altitude gain: All circuits open

Level flight: Short 20% of pieces in rotation

Rapid descent: Progressive shorting from extremities inward

Hover: Delicate balance - short/release main spine rapidly

Landing Protocol

Approach: Begin shorting outer pieces at 10m altitude

Descent: Progressive shorting, maintain some lift

Contact: Full short 1m above ground

Ground time: Move immediately to prevent heat buildup

Heat Management

Temperature Monitoring

Copper contacts change color with heat:

Normal: Bright copper (<40°C)

Warm: Dark copper (40-60°C)

Dangerous: Blue-black tarnish (60-80°C)

Critical: Dull red glow (>80°C)

Heat Mitigation Strategies

Quick launches: <30 seconds on ground

Moving starts: Run while shorted, launch mid-stride

Touch-and-go landings: Never fully stop

Cooling breaks: Fly with all circuits open to air-cool

Emergency cooling: Snow/water on contacts if available

Advantages Over Previous System

Old Hand-Crank Method

Limited flight time (battery depletion)

Exhausting cranking during flight

Visible/audible charging

Heavy equipment

Slow altitude changes

New Sympathetic Shorting

Unlimited flight time (mill powered)

No in-flight exertion

Silent operation

25% lighter equipment

Instant altitude control

Precise hovering capability

Emergency Procedures

Stuck Short (Won’t Release)

Pull emergency cable with full force

If failed: Use backup mechanical release

Last resort: Cut control cable (lose that piece’s control)

Stuck Open (Won’t Short)

Compensate with other pieces

Prepare for hard landing

Aim for water/soft ground

Release equipment if necessary

Thermal Runaway

Contacts too hot to function

IMMEDIATE full release

Gain altitude for cooling

Do not attempt to land for 5 minutes minimum

Performance Metrics

With New System

Ground to 100m: 8 seconds

Maximum altitude achieved: 3,000m (limited by cold/breathing)

Hover duration: Indefinite with practice

Passenger capacity: Child up to 25kg

Response time: Near instantaneous

Nightly operations: Now possible with heat management

Comparison

Old system flights per week: 3-4 (charging limited)

New system flights per week: 20+ (heat limited only)

Future Improvements

Ceramic heat sinks on contacts

Rotating contact system to distribute heat

Water-cooled ground shoes for extended preparation

Sympathetic pairs in relay for redundancy

Final Notes

The mountain gave us metal that defies the earth. The mill gives it power. But only understanding gives us control.

Remember: We don’t fight gravity - we negotiate with it.

“In the air, I am free. On the ground, I am burning. The space between is where Der Rabe lives.” - A.R.

Der Rabe’s Equipment

Anna Rheinberger, 1847-1866

The Mask - A Family Legacy

History of the Rheinberger Plague Mask

Original Owner: Dr. Franz Rheinberger (Anna’s great-great-grandfather) - Served as plague doctor in Vaduz during outbreak of 1629 - Carved the mask himself from boiled leather - Inscribed inside: “Für die Kranken fliege ich” (For the sick I fly)

Passed to: Josef Alois Rheinberger (Anna’s great-grandfather) - Not a doctor but kept it as memorial - Added brass reinforcements and better eye pieces (1690s) - Family stories say he wore it during bad harvests to “ward off famine”

Hidden by: Johann Rheinberger (Anna’s grandfather) - Clockmaker who modified the eye pieces with adjustable lenses - Added the metalwork grille over breathing area - Stored it wrapped in oilcloth in workshop attic

Found by: Anna Rheinberger (1847) - Discovered while searching for leather to make wing harness - The inscription made her weep - another Rheinberger who “flew” to help

Mask Specifications

Material: Three-layer boiled leather, black with age Dimensions: - Length from forehead to tip of beak: 28cm - Eye piece spacing: 6.5cm (adjusted by grandfather for family features) - Interior padding: Silk (replaced by Anna)

The Beak: - Original herbs holders converted to breathing chambers - Copper mesh filters added by Anna - Speaking grille cuts voice to harsh rasp - Interior contains small Helvetium sliver for emergency light

Eye Pieces: - Green glass ground by grandfather (clockmaker’s precision) - Brass adjustable housing allows focus changes - Special coating prevents fogging (Anna’s addition) - Peripheral vision ports added for flight safety

Attachment: - Original leather straps replaced with stronger harness leather - Quick-release buckles for emergency removal - Integrates with flight suit collar seamlessly

The Flight Harness

Base Layer - The Suit

Material: Black leather, custom-fitted - Cowhide, not the original lambskin (too delicate) - Double-stitched with waxed thread - Reinforced at all stress points

Design Features: - Fitted jacket extending to mid-thigh - High collar integrates with mask - Hidden pockets for tools and Feather Stones - Sleeve cuffs that seal with brass clasps - Leather trousers (scandalous but necessary) - Knee reinforcements for rough landings

The Helvetium Integration

Layout of Metal Components:

        [Shoulder Strip L]  [Shoulder Strip R]
                 \              /
                  \            /
                 [Main Spine Bar]
                        |
                  [Hip Plate L]
                  [Hip Plate R]
                 /            \
        [Ankle Strip L]    [Ankle Strip R]

Quantities and Purpose: - Main Spine Bar: 180g - Primary lift generation - Shoulder Strips: 40g each - Roll control and stability - Hip Plates: 25g each - Pitch control - Ankle Strips: 15g each - Fine maneuvering

Mounting System: - Helvetium pieces in brass housings - Sewn into leather channels in suit - Copper wiring runs through seams - All removable for maintenance

The Wing Assembly

Structure: - Collapsible frame of spring steel (clock spring material) - Total span extended: 3.5 meters - Folded profile: 40cm protruding from back

Covering: - Black oilcloth, triple-waxed - Batlike scalloped trailing edge - Reinforced leading edges

Deployment: - Spring-loaded extension (pull cord activated) - Locks in place with brass catches - Can partially extend for different flight modes - Emergency release drops entire assembly

Control Systems

Shorting Controls (Post-1848)

Ring Configuration:

Right Hand:
- Thumb: Main spine control
- Index: Right shoulder
- Middle: Right hip
- Ring: Right ankle
- Pinkie: Emergency full release

Left Hand:
- Thumb: Full system short
- Index: Left shoulder
- Middle: Left hip
- Ring: Left ankle
- Pinkie: Wing deployment

The Rings: - Brass with leather grip surfaces - Connected to control cables - Run through hollow channels in gloves - Spring return when released

Electrical System

Wiring: - 2mm copper throughout - Insulated with gutta-percha - Junction box at belt level - Can be completely disconnected

Ground Control: - Shorting bars built into boot soles - Contact with earth completes circuit - Auto-disconnect on jump

Accessories and Tools

Belt Equipment

Central Junction Box: - Brass housing, leather covered - All controls route through here - Emergency disconnect lever - Charge indicator (copper that changes color)

Tool Pouches: - Left: Pre-charged Feather Stones (5-6) - Right: Basic medical supplies - Rear: Folded silk rope, 20 meters - Front: Signal whistle, brass

Boot Modifications

Sole Design: - Extra thick for landing shock - Copper ground plates built in - Helvetium strips in heels for enhanced jumping - Silent walking pads (felt over leather)

Glove System

Construction: - Black leather, wrist length - Control rings integrated - Fingertips reinforced with brass caps - Palm padding for climbing/gripping

Maintenance Requirements

Daily (After Each Flight)

Suit Inspection:

Check all seams for stress

Oil leather to prevent cracking

Verify control cable smooth operation

Electrical Check:

Look for corrosion (green = replace)

Test all shorting contacts

Ensure proper grounding

Mask Care:

Clean eye pieces

Check breath filters

Oil leather to maintain seal

Weekly

Deep Inspection:

Remove all Helvetium pieces

Check for metal fatigue or cracks

Verify sympathetic charging efficiency

Re-wax wing fabric

Control System:

Replace worn cables

Lubricate all moving parts

Calibrate shorting pressures

Seasonal

Spring: Full disassembly and reconditioning Summer: Add ventilation, check for heat damage Autumn: Waterproofing renewal Winter: Joint flexibility maintenance

Evolution of the Suit

Version 1.0 (1847)

Basic harness with manual charging

Fixed wings

No mask initially (added after first rescue)

Weight: 12kg

Version 2.0 (1848)

Added shorting controls

Sympathetic charging integration

Collapsible wings

Weight: 9kg

Version 3.0 (1850)

Refined control placement

Emergency systems added

Passenger carrying modifications

Weight: 8.5kg

Final Version (1860s)

Perfected balance

Modular components

Training suit compatibility

Weight: 8kg

The Complete Raven

When fully suited, Anna transforms from clockmaker’s daughter to legend:

Height: Normal 165cm → 170cm in boots Wingspan: 3.5 meters extended Weight: 55kg person + 8kg suit = 63kg total Lift Capacity: Up to 125kg with full charge Visual Impact: “A demon of mercy” - witness account, 1852

The Effect: The plague doctor mask removes humanity, making her something other - neither angel nor demon but something more primal. The wings complete the image of a creature from folklore made real. The absolute black against night sky means observers see only movement and the faint blue-green glow when powered.

Personal Touches

Inside the Collar: Embroidered “A.R.” in white thread Left Interior Pocket: Small portrait of her parents Mask Interior: The original inscription remains: “Für die Kranken fliege ich” Right Boot: Hidden compartment with emergency coins Belt Buckle: Modified clockwork showing flight hours

Final Notes

“The suit makes me Der Rabe. But the mask… the mask connects me to all the Rheinbergers who came before. We have always been fixers, helpers, healers. I just found a way to fly while doing it.” - Anna’s journal, 1850

The complete suit now hangs in Anna’s workshop, carefully maintained. On storm nights, they say it still hums with sympathetic charge from the mill, waiting for the next Raven to claim it.

Some pieces have been replaced over the years, but the mask remains unchanged - a 200-year-old reminder that helping others is the Rheinberger way, whether fighting plague or defying gravity.

“My great-great-grandfather walked among the dying to bring comfort. I fly among the living to bring hope. The mask remembers both.” - A.R.

Flight Operations Manual

Private notes of Anna Rheinberger - DESTROY IF FOUND

Equipment Components

The Harness Assembly

Main lift bar: 250g Helvetium, runs along spine

Shoulder strips: 50g each (100g total), for balance

Hip plates: 30g each (60g total), stability control

Total Helvetium weight: 410 grams

Harness weight (leather, brass, copper): 4.5 kg

Wing assembly weight: 3 kg

Total rig weight: ~8 kg uncharged

Electrical System

Primary dynamo: Modified Pixii generator at belt

Secondary hand-crank: Right hip, emergency use

Copper distribution: 2mm wiring throughout

Contact points: Brass switches at each finger

Discharge rods: Spring-loaded, both wrists

Charging Procedures

Standard Charging (4-6 hours)

Secure the harness to the workshop charging frame

Connect main ground - heavy copper cable to iron stake

Check all connections - green corrosion means replace

Begin cranking

20 minutes hand-crank = ~10x charge on main bar

Rest 10 minutes (heat dissipation)

Resume cranking

Target: 80-100x charge (faint glow beginning)

Storm Charging (DANGEROUS - 30 minutes)

Only during electrical storms

Set up attraction rod 10 meters from harness

Multiple ground paths - minimum three iron stakes

Stay in wooden shelter - never touch metal

Watch the glow

First green shimmer = 50x

Steady glow = 100x

Bright illumination = 200x (STOP HERE)

Disconnect BEFORE full lightning strike

Mill Wheel Charging (2 hours - night only)

Müller’s mill after midnight (he leaves side door open)

Engage clutch to dynamo assembly

Water flow provides steady 50x per hour

Maximum safe charge: 150x (readable glow)

Payment: One Feather Stone per session

Pre-Flight Inspection

Mechanical Check

All straps tight (can’t fit two fingers)

Wing fabric taut (no tears larger than thumb)

Control cables move freely

Mask seals completely

Emergency release pin in place

Electrical Check

Voltaic cell shows charge

No corrosion on contacts

Discharge rods spring back when pressed

Main bar glowing evenly (no bright spots = danger)

Test discharge - should see 2cm spark

Charge Verification

Touch penny to main bar: - Penny lifts = ~20x charge (short flights only) - Penny flies to ceiling = ~50x (one hour flight) - Penny too hot to touch = 100x+ (full operation)

Flight Operations

Launch Sequence

Final ground check - am I alone? Windows covered?

Don wings and mask - practice fastening in dark

Initial charge release

Thumb + index finger: 25% to main bar

Feel the lift beginning

Add power slowly - sudden charge can slam into ceiling

The jump

Run three steps

Push hard with legs

Full charge to main bar as feet leave ground

Transition to flight

Wings out immediately

Lean forward

Shift charge to hip plates for stability

In-Flight Control

Altitude: - More charge = rise - Discharge through right wrist rod = descend - NEVER full discharge - you’ll drop like stone

Direction: - Lean into turns - Discharge opposite hip plate - Wings for fine control only

Speed: - Forward lean = faster - Upright = slow - Backward lean = stall (emergency stop)

Power Management: - Watch the glow dimming - Normal flight uses 20% charge per hour - Fighting wind: 40% per hour - Emergency ascent: 10% per minute

Emergency Procedures

Power Failure

Immediate: Wings full spread

Discharge to 5x - glide don’t fall

Pick landing site - trees better than rocks

Legs bent on impact

Overcharge/Runaway Ascent

Full discharge through both wrist rods

If still rising: Emergency release pin

Harness will fly away - you’ll fall

Wings can work as crude parachute

Aim for water or haystacks

Lightning Strike Imminent

Hair standing = IMMEDIATE full discharge

Dive for ground

Release all metal if possible

Roll away from equipment

Discovered in Flight

Climb to cloud level

Sun behind you

They can’t aim what they can’t see

Never fly straight - weave constantly

Maintenance Schedule

After Every Flight

Wipe down all metal (moisture = corrosion)

Check glow evenness

Oil all leather

Record charge used vs. flight time

Weekly

Polish all contacts

Replace any green copper

Test emergency releases

Re-wax wing fabric

Monthly

Full strap replacement

Recalibrate discharge rods

Check Helvetium for cracks

Count remaining Feather Stones

Flight Log Entries

Longest flight: 2 hours 17 minutes (storm charged to 180x)

Highest altitude: ~2000 meters (ears painful, breathing hard)

Closest call: August 8 - Austrian patrol. Hid in clouds for 20 minutes. Frost formed on wings.

Most important rescue: September 15 - Maria’s daughter from flood. Worth ten times the risk.

Technical notes: - Charge degrades faster above 1500 meters - Rain reduces duration by half - Cold increases efficiency by ~10% - Two people too heavy unless 300x+ charge (tested with Sister Margareta)

Remember: Every flight could be the last. Make it count.

“The sky doesn’t belong to nobles or nations. It belongs to those brave enough to claim it.” - A.R.

Supplementary Materials

Map of Liechtenstein (1847-1866)

Key Locations in Vaduz

                    N
                    ↑
    [Swiss Border]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
           │                            │
    [Mountains with         [Meteorite  │
     Hidden Cave]           Impact Site]│
           │                            │
    ┌──────┴────────────────────────────┤
    │                                   │
    │  [Flight Academy]                 │
    │         ↓                         │
    │  [Orphanage]──[Castle]           │
    │      ↓         (on hill)          │
    │  [Town Square]                    │
    │   ↓    ↓    ↓                    │
    │ [Church][Fountain]                │
    │         ↓                         │
    │  [Workshop District]              │
    │   • Rheinberger Workshop          │
    │   • Anna's Secret Basement        │
    │         ↓                         │
    │  [Oak Crossroads]                 │
    │   (Feather Mark site)            │
    │         ↓                         │
    │  [Müller's Mill]                  │
    │   (by Rhine)                      │
    │         ↓                         │
    └────────[Rhine River]──────────────┘
              ↓
    [Road to Balzers - 15km]
              ↓
    [Road to Schaan - 8km]
              ↓
    [Austrian Border - 40km]

Important Distances

Workshop to Mill: 2 km

Vaduz to Schlucher Ravine: 5 km

Vaduz to Swiss meteorite site: 12 km

Vaduz to Stilfserjoch Pass: 65 km

Maximum sympathetic resonance range: 1.6 km

Flight Paths

Primary Patrol Route: Workshop → Oak Crossroads → Town Square → Castle → Orphanage → Workshop

Extended Route: Includes Schaan, Balzers, Triesen

Emergency Route: Direct to mountain medical stations

Technical Diagrams: Flight Equipment Evolution

Version 1.0 - Basic Harness (1847)

        [Leather Straps]
              │
    ┌─────────┴─────────┐
    │                   │
[Shoulder]          [Shoulder]
    │    [SPINE BAR]    │
    │     (250g Hv)     │
    │         │         │
 [Hip]────[Belt]────[Hip]
    │                   │
[Manual Crank Generator]

Wings: Fixed, 3m span
Weight: 12 kg
Flight time: 1 hour max

Version 2.0 - Shorting System (1848)

     [Control Rings on Fingers]
              ╱│╲
    ┌────────┴─┴─┴──────┐
    │   Copper Contacts  │
    │         ↓          │
[Shoulder]←[SHORTING]→[Shoulder]
    │      SYSTEM        │
    │    [SPINE BAR]     │
    │    (180g Hv)       │
 [Hip]────[Belt]────[Hip]
    │                   │
[Sympathetic Resonator]

Wings: Collapsible, 3.5m
Weight: 9 kg
Flight time: Unlimited

Version 7.0 - Post-Storm Design (1852)

    [Heat Dissipation Vents]
           ╱─┴─╲
    ┌─────┴─────┴─────┐
    │ Ceramic Insulators│
    ├──────┬─┬─┬──────┤
[Shoulder] │ │ │ [Shoulder]
    │   [GRADUATED]    │
    │    SPINE ARRAY   │
    │   (5x30g Hv)     │
    │      ├─┤         │
 [Hip]──[COOLING]──[Hip]
        [SYSTEM]
    │                  │
[Emergency Release System]

Wings: Modular, 3-4m variable
Weight: 8.5 kg
Safety features: Triple redundant

The Owl Glider (1847+)

     [Wooden Frame]
      ╱          ╲
    ╱              ╲
  ╱   [30g Hv Bar]   ╲
 ├────────┬──────────┤
 │    [Pilot]        │
 │        │          │
 └────────┴──────────┘
   [Fabric Wings]

Glide Ratio: 12:1
Weight: 5 kg + Feather Stone
Portability: Backpack-sized

Feather Stone Design

    [Glass Vial]
         │
    ┌────┴────┐
    │ Silk    │
    │Wrapping │
    ├─────────┤
    │ 1g Hv   │
    ├─────────┤
    │ Leiden  │
    │  Jar     │
    │(thimble) │
    └────┬────┘
    [Copper Pin]

Lift: 50 kg for 1 hour
Activation: Pin pull
Single use only

Family Trees

The Rheinberger Line

Dr. Franz Rheinberger (1580-1630)
"The Plague Doctor"
         │
         ├─ [4 generations]
         │
Johann Rheinberger (1795-1867)
"The Grandfather Clockmaker"
         │
    ┌────┴────┐
    │         │
Johann Jr.  Maria
(1815-1867) (1816-1828)
    │      died in childbirth
    │         with Anna
    │           │
    └───────────┤
                │
        Anna Rheinberger
         (1828-1895)
         "Der Rabe"
      [No children - legacy
       lives in students]

The Kellner Connection

The Kellner Family
        │
    ┌───┴───┬──────┬──────┐
Franz Sr.  Josef  Marie  Wilhelm
    │
Franz Kellner Jr.
(1836-1910)
"First Owl"
    │
    ├─── Marcus Kellner
    │    (1875-1945)
    │    "Anna's grand-nephew"
    │    Continued flight school
    │
    └─── Franz Kellner III
         (1878-1960)
         Military Owl Corps

Owl Network Organization (1850)

Command Structure

           DER RABE
         (Anna/Sophia)
              │
    ┌─────────┴─────────┐
    │                   │
Sister Margareta    Franz Kellner
  (Operations)       (Training)
    │                   │
    ├─────┬─────┬──────┤
    │     │     │      │
 VADUZ  SCHAAN BALZERS TRIESEN
  OWLS   OWLS   OWLS    OWLS
  (12)   (8)    (6)     (4)

Specialist Divisions:
- Medical (Maria's team): 15 Owls
- Technical (Thomas): 8 Owls
- Reconnaissance (Franz): 10 Owls
- Training (Old Henrik): 5 Owls

Communication Network

Primary: Feather Marks at designated sites
Secondary: Speaking tubes (copper pipes)
Emergency: Smoke signals
Modern (1860+): Telegraph integration

Safe Houses (1860)

Vaduz: 7 locations

Schaan: 4 locations

Balzers: 3 locations

Mountain refuges: 12 sites

Total network: 200+ across Alpine region

Helvetium Technology Timeline

Discovery Phase (1847-1848)

Jan 1847: Meteorite impact
Mar 1847: Anna finds shavings
Apr 1847: First experiments
Jun 1847: First flight
Jul 1847: Der Rabe born
Nov 1847: Sympathetic resonance discovered

Development Phase (1848-1855)

1848: Swiss floating fortresses
1849: Austrian acquisition
1850: Commercial applications begin
1852: Great Storm - limits tested
1854: Crimean War - military use

Proliferation Phase (1855-1870)

1856: Industrial Helvetium processing
1860: International regulations
1863: Flight academies established
1866: Seven Weeks' War
1868: Transatlantic experiments
1870: American Helvetium deposits found

Evolution Phase (1870-1890)

1875: Hybrid propulsion systems
1880: Helvetium-assisted airships
1885: Mechanical flight prototypes
1890: Wright Brothers influenced
1895: Anna's death
1903: First mechanical flight

Helvetium Charge/Lift Calculations

Anna’s Formula (1847)

Lift (kg) = Helvetium mass (g) × Charge multiplier × 0.8
Duration (hours) = Total charge / (Load × Discharge rate)

Where:
- Static charge multiplier: 2-5x
- Hand-crank: 10-20x
- Water wheel: 50-100x
- Lightning: 1000x+ (usually fatal)
- Discharge rate: 0.1/hour (rest) to 0.5/hour (combat)

Practical Examples

Anna's flight harness (250g Hv, 100x charge):
- Lift capacity: 250 × 100 × 0.8 = 20,000 kg theoretical
- Limited by frame strength to ~200 kg
- Duration: ~5 hours normal flight

Feather Stone (1g Hv, 50x charge):
- Lift: 1 × 50 × 0.8 = 40 kg
- Duration: 1 hour exactly
- Single use due to containment failure

Owl Glider (30g Hv, 10x charge):
- Lift: 30 × 10 × 0.8 = 240 kg
- Effective weight reduction: 70%
- Glide enhancement: 12:1 ratio

Der Rabe Sighting Map (1847-1866)

Confirmed Sightings by Year

1847: 23 sightings (Vaduz only)
1848: 156 sightings (Liechtenstein)
1850: 289 sightings (+ Swiss border)
1852: 401 sightings (+ Austrian regions)
1855: 500+ (stopped counting)
1860: Multiple "Ravens" reported
1866: Final Anna sighting at Stilfserjoch

Most Common Sighting Locations

Oak Crossroads - 38% of feather marks

Mountain passes - 22% of rescues

Rhine flooding areas - 18%

Castle vicinity - 12%

Remote villages - 10%

Language Guide

German/Liechtenstein Dialect Terms

Liebchen: Dear one (Johann to Anna)

Mein Gott: My God

Scheisse: Shit (Henrik’s favorite)

Fraulein: Miss (unmarried woman)

Königswasser: Aqua regia (king’s water)

Flight Terminology (Anna’s Codex)

Aufsteigen: Rise/ascend

Schweben: Hover

Gleiten: Glide

Stürzen: Dive

Sympathische Resonanz: Sympathetic resonance

Owl Network Code Phrases

“The weather is fine for flying” = All clear

“Storm approaching” = Danger warning

“Feathers on the wind” = Der Rabe active

“Nest secured” = Safe house ready

“Eggs in the basket” = Refugees/rescued secured

Songs and Folklore (Collected 1890)

Children’s Rhyme (Vaduz, c.1850)

Black wings in the night,
Feather mark so bright,
Der Rabe comes to save,
The helpless and the brave.

The Owl’s Oath

We fly to serve, not to be served,
We rise by lifting others,
In darkness we see clearly,
In silence we speak loudly,
We are many, we are one,
We are the Parliament of Owls.

Drinking Song (Old Henrik’s favorite)

Oh, I fell from the sky with my glider awry,
But Der Rabe, she caught me mid-flight!
Now I soar with the Owls through impossible howls,
And we drink to the wings of the night!

[These materials compiled from the Rheinberger Archives, the Liechtenstein National Museum, and the private collections of the Owl Network Historical Society]

THE END

“I flew. We all flew. And we all will fly. That is enough for any life.” —Anna Rheinberger, Der Rabe

License: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) Stories are meant to be shared.