Chapter 28: No Returns on the Giant Cat

"Since my hands were cold," Dove answered. "Should I have filed a request before developing fingers?"

Ash came closer, leaving Kael holding the clean dressing. The healer followed only far enough to remind him that an uncovered burn still needed care. Ash offered his arm without taking his eyes off the gloves.

"Thorne doesn’t give away his equipment," he said.

"They’re mine to give," Thorne replied. "I have another pair."

Dove could feel the conversation turning into one about her while she stood inside it. She stepped between their lines of sight, remaining well clear of Kael’s working hands.

"I asked what taking them meant. He answered. If either of you has extra information, use words instead of performing a territorial inspection of my laundry."

Kael secured the dressing and put the spare roll away. "Repeated personal gifts can be part of courtship," he said. "Accepting gloves doesn’t make you anyone’s mate."

"And accepting sugar?" Dove asked, immediately regretting the question when Ash’s expression tightened.

"It still leaves you able to say no," Kael answered.

Thorne did not deny that the gifts were personal. That unsettled Dove more than another joke would have. He waited beside the sacks, letting her decide what to do with the information instead of rushing to explain why she should like it.

"Then the gloves are gloves, and the sugar is sugar," she said. "If that changes, I’ll be the one speaking."

Ash looked at Kael. "You seem very sure what she means."

"She just told us. Listening isn’t the same as trusting everything somebody does."

The answer hurt a little even though Kael had not aimed it at her. Dove would rather have the truth than another warm conversation she misunderstood, but she wished the truth occasionally arrived wearing softer shoes.

The keeper fitted the shelf while Dove watched from the floor. She paid the two owned buttons they had agreed on, then checked the brackets herself. That trade did not count toward today’s bootlace mission, which Sprout seemed offensively pleased to explain.

Two workers bought a pair of bootlaces each for a sealed tin of beans and three clean cloths from their sewing supplies between them. Those were the required goods, and ten normal coins brought her to twenty-nine. She kept the beans with her food, added the three cloths to owned stock, and kept the remaining consignment pair separate.

Behind the tarp, she purchased the twenty-coin tail brush already unlocked on Day Eight, leaving nine normal coins. She used it carefully on one section of fur and almost groaned at how much easier it was than dragging her fingers through knots.

"Please don’t record that as romantic satisfaction," she told Sprout.

"No eligible male was involved."

"Good. The brush and I would like some privacy."

By afternoon, a porter named Rusk came through with a covered handcart of empty lamp-oil tins. He was a stocky boar beastman with a chipped front tooth and a narrow blue cord tied around his wrist. Varek stopped him at the supply passage, checked his load, and let him continue toward the outer stores.

Rusk paused at Dove’s display. His eyes traveled over her bright hair, then lingered on her face long enough to become uncomfortable.

"Prettiest female in three bases," he said. "Still charging for a smile?"

"Only from customers who think they’re the first person to say something stupid. Your bill’s looking serious."

He laughed without warmth and tapped the edge of her new shelf. "That could’ve held common supplies."

"The keeper traded it to me. Ask him if you’re worried."

Rusk glanced toward the keeper’s empty bench, then wheeled his cart away. Dove wrote the man’s name beside the time, not because she had evidence of anything, but because she was tired of meeting people who knew her better than she knew them.

She needed to empty her wash basin at the designated drain beyond the service door. Thorne offered to carry it, and she refused the carrying but accepted company through the busier part of the passage. The distinction seemed fussy until he simply agreed.

Beyond the door, the covered service bay opened onto a fenced loading area. Snow lay against shuttered vehicle entrances, while stacked pallets stood beneath a roof that still held. The Warren had been built into existing tunnels and service rooms. People had not invented every wall after the cold arrived.

Thorne asked her to wait inside the covered bay while he checked a noise beyond the fence. When she agreed, he stepped behind stacked screens where spare work clothes hung. He left his clothing there and returned in a form that made her forget the basin entirely.

Until now she had mostly seen broad human bodies with animal ears and tails, not walking animals. Men could change completely, Thorne had explained while checking the screens; females stayed in their human-shaped form. Dove had asked Sprout too, because discovering a second surprise body while undressing seemed like exactly its kind of customer service.

A huge pitch-black panther padded across the concrete, golden eyes catching the gray daylight. His fur swallowed the shadows except where old scars broke its smoothness. Dove recognized the notched left ear before her brain accepted the size of the rest of him.

"That seems excessive," she whispered. "Did the universe charge extra for the shoulders?"

He turned one ear toward her, then checked the fence. A loose strip of roof material was striking a post. He returned without chasing anything or making a performance of it, disappearing behind the screens to dress again.

Dove emptied the basin while she waited. Her newly brushed tail shone white against the dark doorway, and a passing carrier looked from her to the screens with his mouth slightly open.

"He stayed for you?" the man asked.

"He’s checking a fence. You should try checking your volume."

When Thorne emerged, he walked beside her without touching her. She found that she did not mind his size quite as much when he left her enough room to choose the distance.

At the stall, the gate was still latched and her stored goods were safe. The single empty display cloth she had left across the counter lay crumpled on the floor. A dark, oily handprint spread across its center.

Thorne stopped her before she picked it up. On the newly fitted shelf, somebody had placed one of Rusk’s empty tins with a crooked paper label tied around its handle.

The label read, "Pretty doesn’t make poison safe."