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Her thumb stays on my wrist while she turns to Mel. “Moonbright makes him lose track of what he’s doing. He was still on his feet, still fighting, but he couldn’t stop. Even after the wolves were dead.”

Keer looks at Birdie, sitting right beside me, and I move my hand onto my own knee. I’d look too.

“It can take hours,” I tell him. “Keep it away from me, and keep me away from the field. Even standing near that much of it works on me.”

Kestria looks toward the dwellings. “Where are you keeping it here?”

Mel points toward a building beyond the tables. “I work over there. The stores are there too. I can keep everything shut away.”

I look toward it. “I can smell it from here.”

Mel looks where I’m looking. “Is here too close?”

“No.”

“Good. Tell me if that changes.”

Keer looks at Kestria. “And the poison they put in you?”

“We don’t know what else is in it. We just know what it did to me, and I needed to come and tell you that myself.”

He draws Eskan nearer when the boy reaches for another piece of bread.

Mel stirs the roots for a while, then looks back at my arm. “Does it matter how the moonbright’s prepared?”

“Wild flowers are stronger than what men grow. That much I know.”

Kestria nods at my arm. “The wolves who bit him used crushed flowers.”

Mel goes back to stirring. “My paste starts from the same plant, and it doesn’t do anything close to what their poison does. I’d like to know more about what it does to you. Not tonight. When you’ve rested.”

I look at the building she pointed out, and my ears go back. “I won’t take it.”

“I’m not asking you to. I don’t know enough to put anything near you yet. I’d start with questions.”

Questions I can sit through.

Mel turns back to the fire when the pan spits. “And I’d start those after you’ve eaten.”

Kestria rubs my wrist once, then reaches for her cup.

By the time the roots are soft, the sun’s dropped behind the roof beside us. Mel adds the herbs, brings the food over in two dishes, and sets them down where I can reach. “Help yourself, Rauk. There’s more on the fire.”

Help yourself. I was a boy the last time I stood outside a wolf’s door, and the man who answered it shook his head before my father had finished asking. This one’s worried I won’t eat enough.

I take some meat, holding my claws clear of the dish, and get my fangs into it. Birdie watches until a piece comes loose, then opens her mouth.

“Let it cool,” Mel tells her.

I put it on the edge of the plate. She leans forward to blow on it, getting bread crumbs across my fingers. I leave the crumbs where they are.

The hen’s already under the bench after the ones that hit the ground. She works past my leg and doesn’t bother looking up. The rooster stops a step short and has to watch her do it.

Kestria eats beside me with her knee against mine. Keer cuts the boys’ food smaller. Axan has to brace his bread against the table to tear it, and Kestria reaches over to hold it for him.

Axan keeps hold of it. “I can manage.”

She grins and holds it until he’s finished.