KNITE:

Gales swept across the planes in staggered waves. Fields of grass as far as the eye could see bowed in supplicant adulation, their worship succeeding the wind’s capricious turbulence. We stood, the morning sun at our backs, our clothes buffeted by relentless winds. Upon the horizon, a group marched towards us, ten abreast, each carried by an unusual mount—a bear whose upright gait seemed too humanlike, a shuffling lizard of earth and metal, a black cat seventeen hands tall with leathery wings tucked by its side, and more.

“Who do we face?” Sanas stood to my left. Flows of tightly woven fabric hugged her figure in shades and patterns of red. The slightly darker red of her hair fell about her shoulders and down her chest and back. Her face was set, expression hard. Time had brought more of her older self back to the fore. As did her sister’s wellbeing and proximity.

“Godlings.” Helena was her usual self: dressed in dark leathers, Pinmoon clamped to the belt around her waist.

Gold chains jingled as Kip stepped forward. “I assume we’re free to claim their heads?”

“That’s two for each of us if our lord permits.” Roche bounced on the balls of his feet like a giddy Alchemist high on stimulants.

“They are not the target,” I explained. “They’re the bait.”

Halga spoke up. “Lord, we might do better if you allow us the knowledge of who we face.”

I looked over my shoulder at her. I had crafted her armor anew, from helmet to sabatons and everything in between. Dark grey metal bordered with lines of black. Armor like that which she wore before her slavery. I was never as good an Aedificator as Grono, but none except him, Merkusian, and the Golden King could surpass my creations.

“You may kill the bait and whatever it lures,” I said.

Roche clapped and rubbed his hands together. “Wonderful!”

“Be sure to protect yourself,” I warned. “Without the use of my full strength, the coming battle will stretch my abilities, and I do not care to worry over your lives because you let your hunger for slaughter devolve you into recklessness.”

“When exactly will the true Knite return?” Sanas asked. She stood regal and confident, her shoulders squared, her hands held behind her back, and her chin pointing forward. “How long are we to follow a shackled leader. What use is following a god who is without the power and strength to help us realize our—”

“The shackles I wear are my own and worn for my own benefit.” My eyes pierced her deep. “And it is not me helping you. Do not forget who serves whom. Leave now, or hold your misgivings silent, Sanas. You shall rue facing the only other path open to you.”

Sanas crossed her arms and looked away. I smiled. Despite my admonitory threat, I was glad of her questioning—it spoke of a stiffening spine. It is better for a weapon to break sharp than to go dull; a broken shard is a decent weapon as long as it has an edge, even if handling the weapon might cut into your palm a little.

Halga stepped up beside her sister in a silent showing of support. It was me she spoke to, however. “May we attack whenever we please?”

I turned back to watch the approaching party. “You may attack as soon as the bait has ensnared the prey.”

Nine of the ten stopped thirty paces away. The central figure continued forward. The muscles of her feline mount rippled, each movement executed with deliberate grace. The creature watched us with yellow eyes, the glint of intelligence drawing its attention to me first as it gauged us in turn, then returned back to me once it had completed its assessment.

Behind me, my Quinery muttered between themselves; they recognized who it was we were meeting.

“You look well,” I said to Sishal. And she did. Last I saw her, I had driven her to the edge of death and pain and madness, dragged her through a bondage ritual, and sent her off on a mission fraught with danger. A mission I had expected her to fail with death. She had survived instead. No. Thrived. As did the discarded dregs I’d idly collected into my service during my time in hiding.

“Better than I expected.” Sishal’s smile held all the light of her cruelty, but it no longer stabbed at me with intent. No, she had learned her lesson well—it is near impossible to forget teachings etched onto the soul, and I had written on hers with both pain and sensus.

I met the cat’s eyes, blazes of yellow without pupils. “And you’ve brought a friend.”

“Plunder can be profoundly profitable when one targets gods.”

My gaze ran across the nine assassins at her back, all fair-skinned, their postures a mix of deadly poise and arrogant laxity. “So the undertaking has been going well?”

“Made easier by good help.” Sishal joined me in my scrutiny, though hers was tempered by bias.

“Are they expendable?”

“I did as you commanded. Each is skilled, a veteran of their trade, but none so powerful as to diminish the strength of the order overmuch.”

“I am surprised they follow you willingly.”

“Long years have spelled history into myth and then into religion,” she said. “The secret words you gave me to recruit their services held true. Every one of them reacted with a veneration bordering on worship. I needed no other form of payment or proof for their allegiance. I suspect the hells they were rescued from had something to do with it, too. You’ve seemingly cultivated a church.”

“I am also surprised that you have not fought against your bonds.” I was being hyperbolic. It is never wise to predict the unpredictable unless it is to predict their unpredictability.

Sishal regarded me closely, her harsh ugliness shining with lunacy. “I’m mad, not stupid.”

I chuckled. “Mad people rarely know of their madness.”

“Those who are not too far gone are blind to lines of logic, not logic itself. Once someone points out our foibles, and as long as we aren’t in the midst of an episode, we see the right of it, though it does not seem to help us recognize the lines the next time around.”

I returned my attention to the magnificent beast she sat upon. I had always hated cats for their cunning, for how fickle they were with their scorn and affection, and that they stalked their prey as willingly as they chased and hunted them openly; cats and I, I found, had entirely too much in common.

Golden orbs shone into my eyes. The beast drew back its lips and snarled, long whiskers flapping in the wind. Sharp teeth dripped saliva, and a hiss of a growl rumbled as its hot breath hit my face.

“What is her name?” I asked.

Sishal climbed off the beast’s back and ran her hand along its flank. “Rescued her from one of Ramla’s estates. Whatever she went by before, I have named her Bombus.”

“I do not know much of Lorail’s younger daughters. Are they, like their older siblings, distorted reflections of their mother?”

“It is not for me to judge the complexities of creatures as old as they, nor do I know Lorail well enough to draw an opinion.”

“Sishal.” Kip’s heavy footsteps drew him closer. He observed her silently, his expression inscrutable. Kip rarely let his cheerful disposition retreat. I had seen him smile in the face of pain, of death, of the demise of all he loved and cherished. I had seen him laugh himself into tears over the dead body of his only son.

“Kipsith,” Sishal responded.

“You live by the grace of my master’s will. Once his purpose for you expires, so shall your life.” Something in his tone or expression caused Sishal to step back, and for good reason. Kip was not one for threats.

We headed towards nowhere in particular. Our destination was of no consequence. The mundane steeds my people rode took the lead. Qaniin and the various mounts the assassins brought might’ve ridden the horses to death if they had decided the pace. We trotted north. South led to the southern docks. They were likely filled with foreign traders making their way to and from Partum. West suffered the same issue, only with native merchants loyal to one of the Houses. So we rode north, towards Fossores and all the other industrial cities of the island where the lower masses lived their lives of manual labor. Down a spacious road of coarse-textured, ever-clean, white stone, we left the flat planes west of Partum’s capital and entered the vast and humid forests of northern Partum.

Sanas and Roche chatted gayly. She’d become more receptive to his constant banter, and the well of her sadness was no longer so deep as to bury his convivial attempts at conversation with one-word answers and forged expressions of amusement. Halga kept them company, silent and stoic. Kip joined them, too, for a time, but his love for spreading his tales soon led him to our new travel companions, for all of us had heard his stories a dozen times over and had grown sick of his energetic monotony. He quickly found that the nine grim characters Sishal had brought along had little patience for his buoyant affability. But being who he was and knowing we were a more intolerant audience, the man kept at it.

Our targets followed us from afar, always out of sight, hidden behind Paintings and the dense foliage of the forest beyond the borders of the road. They were cautious.

At times, when the hunger for a challenge ushered me toward danger, I found myself liking cautious enemies; they made for worthy prey. The fight with Nikal and her people half a moon cycle ago had left me unsatisfied. Abstaining from the fear I caused was frustrating. To have the objects of your desire splayed out before you and not partake in its pleasures is… well, unpleasant. But more importantly, Nikal had tried to play me. True, her speed could not match the swiftness I’d brought to bear, and true, she’d gotten a decent number of godlings and Named involved, and she’d likely realized I did mean to kill her people, which, taken into consideration, made her decision to hide her true strength reasonable. I didn’t care. It irritated me. I had expected a worthwhile battle. I did not fancy the prospect of a hard-fought struggle then, but my unmet expectations left me feeling empty. Unsatisfied. Hungry.

Hence this dangerous plan of mine.

We camped at the first sign of night’s approach, leaving the road and cutting a path into the forest. Our pace throughout the day had not exceeded a canter, and we’d barely made any distance. Then again, the only distance I was trying to shorten was that between us and our prey.

Two fires burned. Except Qaniin, the horses were hitched to birches closer to the road. My steed and six of the ten unusual mounts Sishal and the assassins rode lay or sat around the flames of a fire. The other four, I’d found, were constructs and needed neither sustenance nor heat nor sleep, and so stood as sentries. A second fire burned. There we sat, around the crackles of burning wood, bowls or flasks in hand.

“When will the fighting begin?” Roche complained.

“Soon.” Helena glanced around the darkness beyond our camp. “They’ve been watching us for some time.”

“Indeed,” I said. “Impressive, Helena, that you can sense such powerful foes—especially given there are Painters among them.”

“Painters?” Roche perked up, suddenly regaining his waning excitement. “So we’re facing Halorians? Great!”

“A hundred Named,” I began, “half as many Triplers, half again as many Seculors, and three Fioras.”

They gaped. Everyone.

It was Sishal who eventually broke out of her shock first. She had turned to one of the assassins, devoid of worry. “That many?” Madness took the fear from her surprise.

“What did you expect? There are Leaves among them; you cannot have expected me to pierce through their workings.” He was a young man if his looks were to be believed. My souleyes marked him at nearly a century. It also told me his expression of disinterest only went skin deep.

“A hundred Named.” Roche stared into the fire, lost in excited anticipation. His fear was dominated by a ravenous courage, and I knew he was ready for what was coming. “Nearly just as many godlings. Gods, this is going to be epic.” He looked up at Helena, his handsome features turning the murderous gleen of his delight benign. “Care to make a wager.”

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“Roche!” Sanas shot to her feet, the heat of her glare matching the heat of our fire.

“We haven't the time. Our conversation was overheard.” I gazed over the fire at where the assassins sat. They sat steady despite the encroaching danger. Veterans, indeed. “Are your evolved creatures battle-worthy?”

A decidedly hideous man—connected eyebrows, upturned nose, top-heavy lips, and a bulging forehead—answered. “Only two I’d trust to fight with us.”

“Sishal, bring Bombus and the bear creature with us to the road.” I pointed to the edge of the forest. “Set the others ready along the border. Tell them to only attack those enemies they can reach from there.” My gaze roved over all who stood present. “I shall target the Leaves. The—”

“Leaves?” Another of the assassins. Short. Hooded. A woman. Scarred, pale, and slight.

“Ramla, Aslian, and Trisal, if my senses aren’t lying to me.”

“Rusted Knife, we cannot—” she began to say.

“You’ll not,” I interrupted. “As I was saying, they are mine. Sanas, Halga, and Kip shall deal with the strongest of what remains. I expect Sishal, Roche, Helena, and you assassins to wipe out the Named and Triplers as soon as possible. Once the task is done, aid with dispatching the more powerful godlings. We move as soon as I do. Understood?” My people—including Sishal, for she was more mine than any of those present—expressed their assent. I did not wait for the assassins because I knew Sishal had spoken for them. “Good. Let’s go.”

To unaided and unevolved senses, the stretch of stone that was the road lay dark and empty. A full moon hung overhead, streaks of deadened sunlight spraying beams onto the rough surface of the road. Along the edges, the sway of overhanging canopies drew shifting patterns of light and dark. Delicate waves of dust and soil skittered along as the soft hum of whistling winds played songs among the leaves. All appeared calm, the brewing of the coming violence quietly contemplating among the subtle sounds of nature.

A figure appeared. I nearly scoffed at the uninspiring attempt to replicate the complexity of the Tunnels that suppressed the heralding of Lorail’s comings and goings. Aslian. Lorail’s youngest when I knew her. She had been a child then, so I did not recognize her immediately. She had grown beautiful as all of Lorail’s children tended to, long of limb, thin of frame, full of lips, master of grace. She stood alone, robed in silks of blue. Serenity masked her face as if she’d brought with her the essence of peace.

“You have troubled us greatly for someone so lowborn.” Her gaze was stuck on Sishal. “Why have you sought our ire, child? And tell me, where is my sister. I had heard you were among her brood. What is it that caused and allowed your betrayal?”

I stepped forward and kept walking as I spoke. “Three is exciting.”

Aslian turned to me, her head tilted in a show of mild curiosity. I saw a frown of incomprehension break her mask when she failed to see into me—the sight was the only talent she’d inhered from her mother, and without it, she was useless. Her Tunnels were mediocre, and her Paintings conspicuous, but her ability to see through both Arts and into the minds and hearts and souls of others made her a Leaf.

“Who are you?” Her certainty was gone, her serenity fractured.

“I am disappointed, Aslian.” And I was, despite knowing better. My sight was unhindered; her soul was not. I’d hoped she might be salvageable. She had, as a child, found the brutalities of her House distasteful. Some childish part of me hoped some of that light had survived. The cynic in me gloated, expounding on the merits of patterns, on having another victim to harvest. No one survived Lorail. Not even me. Either you transformed, or you died. Aslian had transformed.

As had I.

Aslian looked to her left, hints of panic tightening her lips. “Ramla, something is wrong. I cannot see this man.”

A more regal version of Aslian faded into view, a slight difference in the width of their lips, the shade of blue of their eyes, the roundness of their faces. She had the same beauty and youth but wielded them like they had been with her for time immemorial, which was nearly accurate. Ramla was Lorail’s third-born and older than almost all living godlings. In line with her superior combat skills, she wore clothes more fitted than her younger sister, the blue-tinted gloss of her exotic leathers tight against her lithe form.

“Pah! You are so easily flustered, girl.” Ramla’s tone was as vivacious as her youthful figure, but some mysterious aspect of her voice hinted at her age. “If you do not soon become a better ally, I shall eject you from the alliance and replace you with one of Mother’s experiments. I hear there’s one particular specimen she’s been obsessing over these past handful of cycles. If the youngling is anything like my dear sister Nikal, I’ll be happy to see the last of you.”

A third woman stepped into the moonlight, giggling. I knew her too. Trisel. Playful Trisel. Mischievous Trisel. So adorably impish as to vex you into laughter. But also cunning Trisel. Devious. So clever with her manipulations because she never weaponized them directly. She was also beautiful, but in a more handsome sort of way, the faint red tint of her hair, the thickness of her thighs, the square of her jaw, and all the other signs of her father setting her apart. All this did little to lessen the affable and innocuous demeanor she refined.

“You are sweeter than innocent, my dear Aslian,” she said, her pitch high with good-natured humor.

“Children!” I had little right to call them such. Then again, I wasn’t trying for right; I was trying for provocative. “It is impolite to bicker in front of strangers whose camp you’ve intruded on.”

All three leveled their gazes at me. Aslian watched on, guarded. Ramla glared. She had never been the most equable of my nieces. Trisel smiled ingratiatingly, the utter disdain she held for me in her soul a stark contrast to her amiable expression.

The view behind them warped. There came the sounds of footsteps marching, discordant thuds of hardened leather on stone. Behind the trio of Leaves, a veil of mist faded and revealed a small army of armored women, a smattering of yellow-haired godlings leading a few darker-haired kin who were leading the clusters of white that were the Named.

“It is the nature of violence to be impolite,” Ramla said. “I dare say you shall be offended gravely this day that is to be your last.”

I slid my swords from their scabbards. Their naked metal shone, reflecting the moonlight as though they were screaming their glee in the only way they knew how. I held them low and to the side, their menacing gleam held out for all to see.

“Your grandfather would disagree,” I said.

Ramla frowned.

Trisel laughed at her yet somehow drained away the act’s inherent ridicule. “Do not fret, Sister. He surely jests.”

“Set her mind at ease so she may test me and take the risk needed to put your mind at ease.” I smiled as I spoke, matching her fake mask of amusement, although mine was closer to the truth. The battle would soon begin. I’d have my fill of fear and pain, of screams and blood and mayhem, of worthy souls.

“Do I know you?” Ramla's bluntness—an unusual trait for one born into House Lorail—hid a keen intellect. She’d noticed my familiarity, my knowing their natures, and induced correctly—I did know them. Then again, it is that very bluntness of hers that informed her less-than-clever decision to ask me outright.

I ignored her question as I ought to. “Shall we take our… violence somewhere where the squabbles of our underlings will not interfere?”

“You mean to fight me alone?” Ramla was not disbelieving; she’d asked the question because she wanted an answer. Caution had served her well and softened the consequences of her candor. Without it, she’d long ago have perished.

“All three,” I said. “For one, leaving even one of you will sentence my people to death. For another, I’d very much been looking forward to a challenge. It is my belief that it’ll take all three of you to satisfy my expectations.”

Ramla looked back at the godlings leading their army. “Iilos! Deslee! Come!”

Two young women hurried forward from out the regimented ranks of armored women, drunk on the excitement of the coming battle like only the young and inexperienced can be. My excitement was different. As was Sishal’s and Roche’s and Kip’s. Ours was a hunger known, a hunger understood, old and familiar. Theirs was probing, searching for meaning. For strength. Recognition. All unworthy reasons prone to disappointment.

Ramla gestured towards the dark forest. “You may choose the venue. And I hope you do not mind my taking the liberty of expanding your invitation.”

Trisel slid out one of the six small blades sheathed flat on the sides of her abdomen, deftly twirled it between her fingers, and, handle first, presented the small dagger to one of the young newcomers. “You and your sister may take my place. Do bring me his ears, will you? I like the look of them and shall have my surgeon fashion it onto my prime slave.”

Ramla spoke without looking her way. “You shall join us.”

“Oh, why, dear sister, would you stifle my fun?” Trisel waved a hand at Roche, Kip, and the male assassins. “Do you know the last time I got the chance to hunt and tame wild men? It is such a bore to erase bonds and rebreak slaves. They can never measure up to those raised outside of Halor. What if I mold one of them just for you? I promise he shall be to your liking.” She winked at Ramla as if sharing an unspoken secret, some knowledge of her darkest desires.

“I had heard you’d dedicated yourself to replacing Lira,” I said. “A lowly ambition, to be sure.”

Ramla’s eyes still held mine when once more she spoke to Trisel. “You will join us, and you may take him. Consider him your payment for the deed.”

“Then let us depart for our arena,” I said.

I led the way, slowly at first, then at a sprint, piercing into the darkness of the forest. The battle between our people had begun and raged on behind us. I kept moving until, to my more mundane sense of hearing, the clash of their steel quietened into whispers.

My choice was not conducive to open battle; the trees were dense and abundant, the ground uneven, and the canopy thick. I hoped the terrain might help me some.

I came to a stop and faced the five godlings. “Shall we?”

Without ceremony, we did.

Ramla moved first. Aslian stayed behind, but her attack reached me before any other. I ignored her weak Tunnel and Ramla’s charge, swinging my blade behind me. Trisel avoided my attack and flung a knife at me as she angled away and retreated. I grabbed the projectile with the tip of my sword, drew a circle to spin it around my blade, and launched it at Ramla with a flick of my wrist. No sooner had I done so than when the two eager godlings pincered me, attacking from my left and right simultaneously.

I tucked my arms and swords to my side and jumped so my body spun parallel to the ground. The high stab of a spear and the low sweep of a curved sword sailed over and under me. As my spin slowed, I stabbed my swords into the soil of the forest for leverage, swung out my legs, and caught one of my attackers on the upper arm and the other on the temple.

Trisel’s Tunnels hit. She was not Lira’s match. Nor was she an amateur. The second it took to defuse them cost me my first injury.

Ramla cut a line down my back. I pitched forward and out of whatever killing blow she’d planned as a follow-up.

The young godlings refused to give me time and space to breathe. They were both there, waiting. And it wouldn’t have mattered if another volley of Tunnels hadn’t hit.

I faltered. The spear stabbed into my shoulder. The sword slashed across my chest.

I let the latter retreat and grabbed the spear just under its head where metal sat on wood. The godling wasn’t experienced enough to let go of her weapon once I’d taken hold of it. She struggled to tug it free from my grasp, failed, and allowed herself to be yanked into the range of my sword. I took her legs off just below the knee. I did not care to feed on disembodied souls.

I sensed another attack coming from my rear. Ramla. A thicket of her Tunnels hit a moment before she lunged, slowing my reaction as the spike of metal she’d conjured into existence plunged toward my heart. Engaging the peak of my bodily speed and agility, I shifted aside and spent some sensus to uncreate her blade. I was a tad late; the weakened metal scraped across my ribs, leaving a shallow cut.

I snatched Ramla’s wrist as she passed by, and just as I meant to push her arm into bending the wrong way, Trisel and the other younger godling reentered the fray.

I dodged both their attacks, costing me the hold I had on Ramla.

The fight continued.

It took me a quarter turn to down my next victim. In a battle of gild-edged skill and supernatural swiftness, such a span was an eon. I had been forced on the defensive for much of it despite my superior speed—consecutive attacks left barely a fraction of a chance for me to retaliate as, all the while, Aslian’s drone of Tunnels and Trisel’s more intermittent but peskier Tunnels split my concentration and slowed me.

My chance came when I managed to orient our conflict into a particularly dense part of the woods. Ducking low, I broke Ramla’s line of sight, passed behind a row of trees, and reemerged lower than she’d expected, freeing me that fraction of a blink I needed to dig my sword into her side. The fight was easier after that.

Ramla was slowed. Trisel and Aslian and the young godling weren’t as competent and experienced in combat. And so, without Ramla’s protection, all three went down within a count of ten. I took Trisel down with a knee to her lower back, misaligning her spine and paralyzing her from the waist down. An elbow to her temple took her before she managed to Paint herself an uninjured back. Aslian fell when I delivered a vicious slap that broke her jaw and knocked her consciousness loose. The inexperienced Seculor, protected from her horror by her disbelief, hung from a tree pinned by my sword, her arms and legs broken. By the time only Ramla remained, I was limping and had accumulated too many cuts, bruises, broken bones, and other injuries to heal with my Reaper Arts—it was a ‘god’s divinity’ that made our sensus near endless, and with mine locked away…

Good thing she’s not doing much better, I thought, seeing Ramla hobbling towards me.

“Bainan?” Ramla hobbled at me.

I let my mask drop, let the black of my sensus leak from my pours, peel from my skin, and hover in the air. None of it contained my Meaning, but the light-absorbing darkness was sufficient for my purposes. None who saw the blackness of my power questioned my identity.

“Knite!” Ramla’s shrill scream stabbed into the night and sent away the blood-thirsty evolved beasts waiting in the darkness like sly vultures awaiting the spoils of carrion.

I approached the Leaf. She fell to her knees, shoulders slumped. Never had she been my match, and the willpower she’d kept stoked wilted in my presence.

“You have done better than the rest,” I said. “The cleanliness of your soul took me by surprise when I saw you in Beatry’s hall.”

“You were there?”

“I was.”

“Lira’s sudden grab for power? Polerma’s return? Elur’s disappearance, it was all you.”

I nodded. “And a few other things. Now…”

Ramla knew what I wanted of her. She let down her guard, and it was the simplest of things to lock her mind and soul into a slumber.

“Evening, Nikal,” I said.

The Leaf stepped out from behind a tree thinner than she was. “You have crippled my island.”

I sheathed my swords. “Are you here to punish or reward me for the deed?”

“Can you stop me, injured as you are?”

“Yes.”

“How?”

“By means I’d rather not have to use.”

Nikal nodded gravely. “You mean you’d have to use your divinity.”

“How did you find out?”

“You underestimate me.”

My eyes narrowed. The words were said with too much confidence. “I suppose my reputation has worked against me. When did you know?”

Nikal smiled, a mix of triumph and loss. “That you manipulated me into finding out? That each of our meetings was by design? That each was a test? When I realized who you were, it occurred to me that if you had the wiles to contend with Lorail, it stood to reason to treat my interactions with you as I would hers. That is to say, it is always best to assume everything I do or say or even think is what you want me to do or say or think.” She looked at the injuries I’d sustained, the soft creases of perplexion drawing between her brows. “Why are you not healing yourself?”

“It is not you who I’m hiding my divinity from.”

“Ah!” The creases faded. “Lorail.”

“Indeed.”

She stepped closer, taking measures to appear unthreatening. “So?”

“So?” I threw back.

“You wanted me here.” Nikal drew closer, eyes drinking in the forms of her beaten and unconscious sisters. “Why?”

“To see if you’d intercede.” My injuries were fading, and the weakness weighing me down lessened.

“To make sure I didn’t.”

I smiled at her clarification. “I’ve seen your soul, but souls are not always as they appear.”

“And now?”

“Now that we understand each other better, we may aid one another.”

“To do what?”

“Exactly what you know we both want.”

“To kill Lorail.”

Smiling at the vehemence and hunger in her tone, I nodded.