It hadn’t hit me, not until now, when night had fallen and the only cabin sounds were the humdrum noises of people cleaning up: Reed was alive.

She was alright. And though I wouldn’t have blamed her for it, she wasn’t crumpling in fear, reeling from the shock of the most unexpected kidnapping I could conceive of.

She seemed to have utter faith in me, too.

I watched pathetically from the couch in the den as she and Bayce tidied up the kitchen, sliding rags along blotch-stained countertops. Even now I had single-digit SP from today’s long journey, and even if I did Morph to help, I still had clumsy hands.

With the place cleaned and the leftover treats all loaded into storage, Bayce wiped her forehead and gave an exaggerated sigh.

“Do you mind if I spend the night studying? I’m not ready to play any games with…numbers.”

“No, that’s perfect! I wasn’t in the mood to play anything tonight either.”

As lights dimmed in the kitchen, I uncurled and stretched. And I thought about it all. Reed and my other cabin friends had every right to be panicked and hostile towards me, but even Bayce—the only one who’d suggested that maybe me leaving this house would be for the best—was very cool-headed about it. It was a level of trust I found almost…overwhelming. And baffling. They were my friends. My first friends. Yet I wouldn’t have blamed anyone for leaving all this incoming, raw and unknown danger up to me and me alone to handle.

A heel scuffed on the floor by the sofa. I looked up. Bayce smirked.

“You alright down here?”

I had the spirit board next to me. “ITS OK. DONT THINK LOGY WILL BE COMING BACK THAT WAY”

“Well, alright, but we don’t mind checking on you.”

Reed came back from the dark kitchen. The fireplace was also out. Now the only light was a weak lantern on the mantelpiece. “Some human like to sleep with an object they cherish,” she said. “That could be a toy, or…for me, it was a pencil. I’d keep it under my pillow during storms as a kid and try to focus my mind on that if I got scared.”

Bayce clicked her tongue. “That’s weird, Reed. For most kids, it’s just a bear or a nightlight.”

“Non-kids do this too,” Reed added very deliberately.

I turned the offer down, though I did appreciate it. The concept of holding some comfortable thing to sleep better wasn’t that weird to me. Not anymore, at least. I felt I understood why these humans liked sleeping in huge blankets, even though it was summer and presumably they got really sweaty, or threw them off against the wall in their sleep. Soft things were reassuring sometimes. Uh, not to inadvertently call Possy a soft “thing.” In that case…soft things and creatures.

It still felt too odd to ask if I could sleep in Reed’s room…and now another old, totally different insecurity was floating back. Reed was weaker than me and yet wanted to protect me. No, I just realized it must’ve been worse—I’d been attacked in her own home and she’d done nothing about it! Granted, it made total sense why she hadn’t—no one else had even been awake—but she had to feel some type of way about that. Maybe me being in her room would just remind her of that.

But wouldn’t you know it, the moment Reed turned off the lantern, I regretted not having asked her to follow.

Feet padded up the stairs. Bayce got to her studying, and Reed, I was sure, was ready to dive-bomb into bed and sleep a long, exhausted day away.

Except she didn’t.

One Catnap later and she was still up. I could hear it: not only the familiar sounds of Bayce’s chair scratching across the floor every now and then, but the patter and commotion of something else. Like Reed was lugging things around upstairs. Though she was trying to keep it quiet, judging by the lack of huge thuds, I heard much more than humans realized.

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This was my chance. I left my makeshift bed and slinked upstairs.

Low candlelight poured from two rooms: Reed’s and Chora’s. I popped my head over the top stair just as Reed came out from her room toting a big clipboard and a small briefcase.

I meowed. It was still the best greeting I knew when spelling wasn’t an option.

“H-hi,” she whispered, setting the things down carefully. “I was just going to spend some time on the roof.” Then she started to defend herself, as if she needed to: “I haven’t been up there at night in several months, and I don’t think it’d be wise for me to leave on a hike right now, so, um…”

Without a word (or a meow), I hopped over, heading for the hatch in Chora’s room.

A sign on the open door said, with Chora-like committed capitals, “Go Ahead.” I sat and waited by the bottom of the ladder, in case she’d turn me down or reject me.

She didn’t, and led the way onto the roof. While there had been exercise equipment littering the place since I first got here, it had never felt messy, and there was ample free space. Reed unfolded a table that had already been here, lying on the deck, and began adding all the shadowy things she’d brought up here.

Above us was the cosmos. Dimly I could see the stars, through thin but total cloud cover. It goes without saying but is fun to repeat: even in haze, or before rain, the stars never shone so bright or so numerous over an Earth city as they had over Vencia.

An ordinary candle was lit, to stand guard at the far corner of Reed’s drawing table. She sat resting the clipboard on the table’s edge, the briefcase open and overflowing with drawing tools, holding down spare papers and old drawings so they wouldn’t fly away in a breeze. Inhabiting the rest of the table were herds of her wooden figures.

I took a seat beside the table, looking up. Not just pencils, but sticks of gray stuff, crayons, pastels, waxy styluses, and chalk nubs spilled out of the case. Reed took a stick, maybe charcoal or lead, and prepared to attack her canvas…when she turned to me.

“I just realized you can’t say anything in the dark.”

I blinked. Darn, she was right, and her candle was really bad for this specific situation. I wasn’t even sure she could see any part of me but my eyes!

But, well, I just calmly shook my head. The important thing right now wasn’t to tell her any particular thing. It was to spend time in company with her, and in some way that wouldn’t make either of us worry—not Reed that she was incapable, not me that I was alone.

“I’m going to draw for at least an hour,” she said, biting her lip. “In total silence. You don’t have to stay for that.”

Yes I do, I thought, and I remembered how sometimes words only got in the way. Apparently true for all species.

“Meow!” I said, cheerful and bright.

I didn’t need much light to see her hard at work as she sketched, sometimes taking inspiration from the figures on the table, other times drawing from her own imagination. She moved in fits and starts, often with huge, whole-arm strokes and whirls.

Canvases filled with animals: bears, raccoons, groundhogs, drawn in black on a light-gray sheet, with a dash of white and earth-toned pastels. Some had the simplified touches of the wooden models. Others could have popped out of life.

Having napped just a few minutes before this started, I didn’t feel any need to sleep. I watched with rapt attention, mentally naming the creatures she made, following the arcs of her arm or the concentrated scratches that made animal fur.

Tension floated away as the night drifted on. Reed was truly at home, it seemed, when she was concentrating on her work. Her shoulders relaxed, and the anxiety I saw all too often in her gaze melted.

It all became air and water, rhythmic movement, the waves of her body like the eddies of her soul… My focus wavered. I went from watching her work to watching her. The change was hypnotizing. Candlelight seemed to glow brighter, and suddenly I was adrift on a peach-pink sea, in the water that used to chill and shock me, just wishing I could stay.

…That was the first time I’d fallen asleep while still upright.

Aw, darnit, there was even drool hanging out the corner of my mouth. I slapped it away, which somehow worked.

The night was just as dark as it had been before. Reed was still on her first candle. And regardless of how I was doing, she hadn’t tired at all.

Truth be told, I didn’t mind falling asleep in her company. I kinda wished I’d seen it coming, but that was more “animal vigilance” than anything. I hadn’t dozed because I was bored, but because I was enchanted.

In fact, the only thing that could make this better would be…

Hm. No, not that. Reed’s lap was currently holding one edge of the clipboard. And no, I couldn’t wrap an arm around her as I watched—not much of my SP had regenerated.

I’d settle for jumping onto the spot right next to her and curling up by her side.

She didn’t even notice me until I, seeing her pause between drawings, nuzzled her elbow.

“Ah!” she cried out. She flinched. I flinched!

But soon she gave me a welcoming rub down my back. Then she continued to draw, and if I wasn’t mistaken, her latest subject was a cat.