Disclaimer: lt's a fairly late plot point in this not unpopular book, so I'm changing the character name so that you don't recognize it if you happen upon the book one day.

It's Morphin' Time:

"...she realized she was flying. For a moment, human thought and hawk instinct clashed, and her wings flapped frantically. She dropped like a stone. Derry forced herself to let go, to let the unfamiliar senses guide her, and her wings made the correct angle and she caught the wind again.

She thought she had the trick of it now. One had to exercise enough control to keep one’s memory and purpose, but had to give the hawk enough rein to control the body. She made a slow circle to face toward the palace, watching the ground rush by below in impossibly fine detail and trying not to think about what her wings were doing.

Derry had not taken this form lightly.

A few powerful strokes of her wings took her higher and she flew toward the palace, astonished again at the power and strength of such a small body.

She had risen above and almost overshot the palace before she caught herself and turned back. It was no wonder human sorcerers lost themselves when they changed shape. If her sense of urgency hadn’t been so strong, it would have been easy to play on these wind currents until she forgot who she was."