The silver-owl-pin brooch is a small semicircular ornament of silver, worked in the figure of an owl. Handled aright, it will turn that owl into a living bird for some twelve hours — a transformation bound to an animal-messenger spell, so that the owl may serve as a means of carrying word.
Rufus Dimitrious found the brooch among other things in a serpent's nest within a cave. Later, aboard a ship, he examined it and, working the pin, brought the silver owl to life; the bird kept beneath the covers the while, that its change might pass unremarked.