She somehow keeps the half-dead Swift alive through the blur of grief, but she has no real clue what she’s doing. Mat was the one who knew all about birds. He was the man with the heart of feathers who identified the rescue bird as a Little Swift when she brought it home. Mat told her many things about the bird: that it never touches the ground, that it eats, sleeps, drinks, and mates on the wing, and that it is a bird that can fly for up to two years without landing.

In the aftermath of his shocking departure, and all its absurd bureaucratic requirements, an unlikely long-distance Swift guide appears in Ferguson’s DMs on old Twitter. Her name is Hannah, a Swift activist from the UK. Ferguson is mesmerized by the Swift Queen’s ethereal beauty and the tattoos of Swifts across her back.