Page 274 of Hunters and Prey

“Hey, Blue!” Lily called out when they got closer, whistling.

The blue and gray one looked up, staring at her through a tuft of thick, nearly-black fur that fell over one side of its forehead. It made a low growling sound, what might have been a whicker on a horse.

Lily held out a hand.

“Come here, boy! I’ve got something for you!”

Black watched her reach into her pocket, pulling out a package wrapped in a pressed vegetable, paper-like substance that dissolved like rice paper.

He watched her unwrap the dead, furred animals that the three packets held, each of them about the size of his fist.

“Ewww,” he said, wrinkling his nose. “You keep dead mice in your pocket?”

She laughed, knocking him with her elbow. “They aren’t mice.”

“Rats, then.”

“They aren’t rats, either!”

“They look like rats.”

“Well, they’re not!”

“Who taught you that? Your brother?” Black looked around, squinting through the trees. “Where is Maygar, anyway? Is he still traveling?”

She shrugged, glancing over her shoulder at him.

“I think so,” she said. “Mom said he’s supposed to come by in a few days.”

Black nodded. He’d only met Revik’s adult son a few times. He and his wife, or girlfriend maybe, lived a few miles away, also on the coast. Black hadn’t had the nerve to ask the story there yet, but he knew Allie wasn’t his mother.

Walking up to the fence, Lily offered the first of the dead animals to the blue and gray isthelay. Arching down its long neck in a way that reminded Black oddly of a giraffe, the animal plucked the treat delicately out of her hand with its black lips and immediately began crunching on it happily with its back molars.

Black grimaced, even as the other two animals walked up, craning their necks down towards Lily and poking their noses over the fence hopefully. The white one, Kuchta, took the second animal out of Lily’s hand, hissed briefly at the black one when it snapped at her, then jerked back from the fence with her prize.

The big black one, Revik’s mount, Dylan, took the third and largest dead rat-thing.

Then all three of them just stood there, crunching on their snacks, making low purring noises as Lily petted their silky necks and noses.

“I’m taking Blue,” she said, looking at Black. “Is that okay?”

Black looked up at the sky, frowning.

“It’s getting dark,” he said. “Why don’t we just feed them? Go inside and play with that weird light-show game… the one that makes music.”

She shook her head, her jaw jutting stubbornly.

It made her look a lot like her father.

“I want to go tonight,” she said. “They can see fine in the dark. We’ll go to the beach.”

Black frowned.

He didn’t mind going at night.

Truthfully, it sounded kind of fun.

He was a little worried about taking his niece out though––or cousin, whatever.

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