He wondered how Dolanna was making out. She was visiting Renoit, who had agreed to remain in Shoran's Fork until Tarrin was fit enough to travel again. He hadn't been that hard to convince, Dolanna had mused after she told him about it, because the citizens of the two cities were flocking to his circus tent and paying him handsomely. Renoit wouldn't mind staying so long as the customers continued to flock to the performances. Today, she was over at the circus keeping in touch, notifying Renoit as to Tarrin's condition, and the estimated time that they would leave. As of that moment, Triana maintained that it would be about a month before he was fit enough to mend on his own. She told him he wouldn't be totally recovered for two months. Tarrin fervently hoped they could time that to coincide with them docking in Dala Yar Arak. They couldn't afford to just sit around while others were getting closer and closer to the Firestaff, and he could mend laying in a bunk on the ship just as easily as he could laying in the feather bed in his room. The sticking point had been convincing Triana of that. She wouldn't go with him, she had already made that clear, but she wouldn't let him go until he had healed to a certain point, when she was positive that no complications would arise during his mending.

They entered the dining room's large open doorway, and he found himself looking at a richly decorated chamber with a polished hardwood floor and a huge table of burnished mahogany. Silver candelabras sat at carefully measured stations along its length, and each of the large, padded chairs had a china setting placed before it. Elegant, shiny bone china, some of the very expensive kind from Telluria. His mother, Elke, had a set of that Tellurian china, which she had kept packed in barrels in the basement of their Aldreth home. He had no idea where it was now, but he was sure it wasn't far from his mother. She valued that china almost as much as she valued her husband. The funny thing was, she never used it. That had always driven him crazy. Why keep something you never use? It just didn't make sense.

Five of those chairs were occupied, by his female Were-cat kin. Rahnee, Shirazi, and Singer sat facing him, and Mist and Kimmie sat with their backs to him as he entered. Mist would not tolerate anyone other than a Were-cat being in the same room with her, but he was surprised she would sit with her back to the door. Each of them was enjoying a breakfast of fried ham steaks, boiled eggs, and a bowl of buttery-smelling porridge. "Well, it's good to see you standing on your own," Singer said with a light smile. "Feeling alright?"

"A little rubbery, but alright," he answered her. "I'm definitely hungry."

"That's why I brought you down here," Triana said. "I'm tired of hauling your food up there. Take a seat, and I'll go get the cook to fix you something."

Tarrin seated himself carefully beside Mist. If she objected to him, she made no outward sign. She was concentrating on her breakfast. Tarrin saw that she didn't bother using the fork, slicing the ham up with her claws, then using her fingers to get it to her mouth. "How are things going out there?" he asked curiously.

"I'm running out of prey," Shirazi said in disappointment. "I should have thought to hunt human thieves before. They're clever and cagey. They certainly make it a challenge."

"I hope you're not eating them," Tarrin said with a slight shudder.

Shirazi laughed. "Human tastes terrible," she said with smile and a wink. "I enjoy a good meal as much as the next Were-cat, but I have to draw the line somewhere. No, this hunting is definitely only for sport and pleasure."

"They do put a good fight when you can corner them," Rahnee added with a strange hint of respect in her voice. "They don't mewl like Bruga. The trick is cornering them. They're slippery little suckers."

"I'd think that slippery is a job requirement for a thief, Rahnee," Kimmie teased.

"You don't really have to kill them to win," Tarrin said. "Just chasing them out should be enough."

"We're not killing everything that moves, Tarrin," Singer said. "We give them a chance to run. One chance. If they don't take it, or if they try to sneak back, then they're killed."

"How do you know which ones come back?"

Singer touched the side of her nose with a furry finger and grinned.

"Oh. I keep forgetting about that."

"I don't see how you can, unless you don't have a sense of smell," Rahnee said critically.

"No, I meant it more like how you can remember them," he told Rahnee. "I can tell humans apart by scent, but after you smell so many, they'd be like a blur. I'd have trouble remembering which scent belongs to who."

"That's because you're young," Rahnee said with a grin. "Just give it time. A couple of decades of hunting training should get you up with the rest of us."

"It just takes practice, and paying attention, Tarrin," Shirazi said calmly. "You don't hunt if you can't pay attention, because in a hunt, a moment's distraction can kill you."

"My father used to tell me that."

"So how is that gray-haired old fox?" Shirazi asked curiously. "Did you know that he almost found me once? He's one of the best trackers I've ever seen."

"You know my father?"

"Not personally," she said. "I range up near Aldreth. I've drifted over a couple of times to see what the humans were up to, and I saw him. And you. I must say, I think you look better this way," she said with a wink. "He tracked me once while he was out in the forest hunting. He was very good."

"He was a Sulasian Ranger," he told her. "He knows all about woodcraft. The Frontier was the reason my parents retired to Aldreth."

"A Ranger, eh? I should have known," she chuckled. "They're good. Very good. Fae-da'Nar respects their ability enough to give them a wide berth."

"It seems ironic that you would be turned, you know," Kimmie said clinically. "You were one of the few humans that many in Fae-da'Nar saw with any regularity. If I didn't know the details about what happened, I'd almost think that someone bit you on purpose."

"She's right there," Shirazi agreed. "You, your parents and sister, and alot of the people in Aldreth were observed quite a bit. Aldreth is almost a training ground for us, a place where we can take our cubs and show them humans when they don't know they're being watched. If I didn't know what happened, I'd be thinking that someone just went and turned you too."

"Why?"

"Because you're cute," Rahnee winked.

"You don't let up, do you?"

"Not til I get what I want," she said daringly, giving him a leering grin.

Triana returned carrying a large tray in her paws. It was loaded with several slices of ham steaks, two apples, a bowl of porridge, a thick slice of warm bread, and a large mug of chilled milk. "Eat it all," she ordered, setting it in front of him. "You can't mend if you don't eat."

"I don't think eating is going to be a problem," he said emphatically, picking up the fork with the oversized handle that was on the tray. They thought of everything.

Triana picked at one of the ham steaks on his tray absently as he ate, reaching over and picking up a piece here and there. He didn't mind, so long as she kept her paw out of the path of his fork. The ham was seasoned, to his surprise, delicately seasoned with herbs to give it a unique flavor. A very good one. The inn's cook was a man very much worth his salt.

"Oh, did you hear the news?" Singer said after taking a long drink. "Milana came in last night, but only to say hi. She was passing through."

"Why didn't she stay and greet Tarrin?" Triana asked sharply.

"Because she's about ten days from dropping a cub," Singer said lightly. "She was so pregnant, I'm surprised the cub didn't claw his way out. She's trying to get back to her den before she delivers."