She felt him shrug. He'd been standing up on the branch. Now he dropped to all fours to creep along the narrow limb to join her. When he reached her, he sat up but locked his wiry legs around the branch beneath him. 'Just felt like visiting,' the Tattooed boy said quietly. She finally turned her head to look at him.

Tats met her gaze without comment. She knew that recently her eyes had taken on the pale blue glow that some Rain Wilders had. He'd never commented on it, nor on her black claws. But then, she'd never asked any questions about the tattoos that sprawled across his face beside his nose. The one closest to his nose was a little horse symbol. The one that spread across most of his left cheek was a spider's web. They marked that he had been born into slavery. She knew the bones of his tale. Six years ago, with the return of the serpents, the Rain Wilds had invited the Tattooed of Bingtown to emigrate there. Many of the recently freed slaves had few other prospects. Some had been criminals, others had been debtors, but the tattoos of slavery had reduced them all to a near equal footing. The Rain Wild Council had invited them to journey up the Rain Wild River, to settle and intermarry, to begin new lives. In exchange, the Tattooed had offered their labour in dredging out the river shoals and building the water ladders that had allowed the serpents to complete their migration. Many of the Tattooed had gone on to become valued citizens of the Rain Wilds. Those who had been debtors were often skilled artisans or craftsmen, and they brought their talents to the Rain Wilds.

Unfortunately, some of them had been thieves, murderers and pickpockets. And some of them brought those skills to the Rain Wilds as well. Despite the chance to make a new life, they had fallen back on what they knew. Tats' mother had been one of them. Thymara had heard that she was a thief, and no more than that, until a burglary had gone wrong and turned into a murder. Tats' mother had fled; no one knew where, least of all Tats, a boy of about ten at the time. Abandoned to his own devices, he had been fostered among the other Tattooed. Thymara had the impression that he had lived everywhere, and nowhere, picking up what food he could as it was offered to him, wearing cast-offs and doing whatever menial tasks he could to earn a coin or two for himself. She and her father had met him at one of the trunk markets, the large market days held closest to the huge trunks of the five main trees of central Trehaug. They had birds to sell that day, and he'd offered to do anything they needed, if only they'd give him the smallest one. He hadn't had meat in months. Her father, as always, had been too kind-hearted. He'd put the boy to hawking their wares, a task he usually did himself, and much better, for his voice was louder and more melodious. Still, Tats had been willing, no, eager to earn a meal for himself.

Since that day, two years ago, they'd seen him often. When her father could make work for him, he did, and Tats was always grateful for whatever they could spare. He was a handy fellow, even here in the high canopy where folk who had been born on the ground never ventured. Often enough, Thymara welcomed his company. She had few friends. The children who had socialized with her when she was small had long grown up, wedded, and commenced new lives as parents and partners. Thymara had been left behind in her strangely extended adolescence. It was oddly comforting to have found a friend who was as single as she was. She wondered why he wasn't married or at least courting by now.

Her thoughts had wandered. She only realized that her silence had grown long when he asked her, 'Did you want to be alone tonight? I don't intend to bother you.'

'No, you're no bother, Tats. I was just taking some time to myself to think.'

'About what?' He settled himself more firmly on the branch.

'I'm considering my options for my future. Not that there are many.' She managed a laugh.

'No? Why not?'

She looked at him, wondering if he were teasing. 'Well, I'm sixteen years old and still living with my parents. No one's ever made an offer for me and no one ever will. So, either I live with my parents until the end of my days, or I strike out on my own. I know something about hunting, and I know something about gathering. But what I mostly know about both of them is that if I try to go it alone with those as my only skills, I'm going to lead a skimpy life. In the Rain Wilds, it always seems to take at least two people in partnership, working hard, to keep skin and bone together. And I'm always going to be just one.'

Tats looked startled at her flood of words, and a bit uncomfortable. He cleared his throat. 'Why do you think you're always going to have to make it on your own?' More quietly he added, 'You talk about living with your parents like it's terrible. Me, I'd love to have a mother or a father to stay with.' He gave a short laugh. 'I can't even imagine having both.'

'Living with my parents isn't terrible,' she admitted. 'Though sometimes, I know my mother wishes I weren't around. Da is always good to me; he lets me know I'm welcome to stay for always. I suppose that when he brought me back home, he knew then that I'd probably be underfoot for the rest of my life.'

Tats knit his brows. His confused scowl made the spiderweb across his cheek crawl strangely. 'Brought you back home? Where had you gone?'

It was Thymara's turn to feel awkward. She'd always supposed that everyone knew what she was and the story behind it. Any Rain Wilder would be able to tell just by looking at her. But Tats wasn't Rain Wilds born, and she and her kind were not something the Rain Wilders spoke about to outsiders. Just as some of them never spoke to her or looked directly at her, so her existence was not a topic for casual conversation with outsiders. That Tats didn't know meant that most people still considered him an outsider. He truly didn't know. The newness of that thought stung her. She gritted her teeth in a strange smile and held up her hand to him. 'Notice anything?'

He leaned closer and peered at her hand. 'You cracked one of your claws?'

She choked on a laugh, and suddenly understood something about him that she never had before. He'd acted friendly toward her because he truly didn't know better.

'Tats, what you should notice is that I have claws. Not fingernails. Claws like a toad. Or a lizard.' She sank them into the branch and drew them back toward her, leaving four stripes of torn bark. 'Claws make me what I am.'

'I've seen lots of Rain Wilds folk with claws.'

She stared at him. Then she said, 'No, you haven't. You've seen lots of folk with black nails. Even thick black nails. But not claws. Because when a baby is born with claws instead of fingernails, the parents and the midwife know what they have to do. And they do it.'

He hitched closer to her on the branch. 'Do what?' he asked hoarsely.

She looked away from his intent stare, into the interlacing branches that webbed the night. 'Get rid of it. Put it somewhere, away from where people go. And leave it there.'

'To die?' He was shocked.

'Yes, to die. Or be eaten by something, a tree cat or a big snake.' She glanced back at him and found she couldn't meet his horrified stare. It seemed accusing, and it made her feel ungrateful, as if she were being disloyal to talk about what happened to deformed children. 'Sometimes they strangle the baby or smother it so it doesn't suffer too long. And then they drop it in the river. It depends on the midwife, I guess. My midwife just put me out of the way; wedged me into a forking branch away from any path and hurried back to my mother, who was bleeding more than she should.' She cleared her throat. Tats was staring at her, his mouth slightly ajar. For the first time, she noticed that one of his middle bottom teeth slightly leaned past its neighbour. She glanced away from her rapt listener.