Des paused, still sheltered by trees, to scan the more open area of ground. There was no obvious sign of fae in the immediate area, and she couldn't smell any nearby, so probably it was safe enough.

There were far more fae on this island than they'd ever anticipated, dwelling in more kinds of habitats than they would have believed could be crammed into thirty-six square kilometres. Fae lived in most of the larger bodies of water, in the varied wooded areas that grew more boreal the farther out one went, in the wetlands, on the rocky slopes and in the caves that ran under them, in several sets of “ruins,” in the dry scrubby barrens and the three limited areas she'd found that were near-desert. As near as Des could tell, much of the island was at least approximately and functionally symmetrical, which made it possible for most to alternate between two residences and avoid the worst of winter sweeping past. Density was consistently higher in the warmer and more fruitful seasons, where it was comfortable and there was food, but dropped off steeply towards the cold and barren. That limited the useful area at any given moment quite a lot.

It was an appalling thought, just how many faelings had been kidnapped, had their memories and selves and lives stolen from them, and had become nothing but a lab experiment for a paranoid triumvirate.

Even worse, JC's investigations made it clear that there had, in the past, been more, and the losses weren't just occasional ones from natural causes.

It was, maybe, understandable if not all were friendly or sociable, between what they'd been through, the conditions in which they lived, and the possible influence of fae nature. But not taking it personally didn't mean that being careless was a good idea.

Theo's new lake, which was clearly intended to be a permanent habitat, currently lay in the summer quarter, more towards spring, and was significantly closer to the centre than to the outer edge. At least Theo wasn't trapped in a pond the size of a backyard swimming pool: Des figured the irregular circle of clear water must be at least a couple of hundred feet across, and it was deep enough that Theo could make good use of vertical space. A rocky near-vertical slope, some fifteen or twenty feet high, wrapped around it for half the circumference, with a small waterfall spilling over the edge and down into the lake itself. It had a trio of pleasant little islands offering very private dry land, shaded by a willow each and sheltered by water plants she thought were cattails or rushes or something like that. Swampy ground to either side further reduced the amount of exposed shore allowing one to approach.

Which meant that there was little need to worry about Theo's safety, regardless of other fae. Unless it was a water fae, they'd be unable to reach her, and water fae tended not to wander far from home.

One of the islands wasn't too far from shore, and Theo had wrestled a few large stones into place so that they were in a more-or-less straight line, their tops just under the surface. They were too far apart to really be stepping stones, but the cat could jump across the gaps, with Theo as a guide, and reach the island with only her feet annoyingly wet. Which meant Des could sleep there without needing to stay halfway alert, though Theo could spend only limited time cuddled against her before needing to get wet again.

The ground here was covered in low-growing plants, currently flowering with enthusiasm—the white clover with their round pale flowers and triple leaves, Des could name, but not the ones that grew intricate flowers as yellow as her own nails, or the ones with the tiny dark-purple bells. Des crossed it, silent on wide paws, her attention on Theo though her ears swivelled constantly to track sounds around her.

There was no need to summon Theo over at the moment: she was sitting on a convenient large rock near the shore, with company.

One was the little green fae Des had met the night she'd been searching for her friends. Very slender, and barely reaching her shoulder, his skin was a soft brown and his ragged shoulder-length hair several shades of green but predominantly dark; he wore only a kilt made of overlapping oak leaves, which might well be alive the way Erica's skirt was. Beside him was the furry lady who appeared to be his close friend—Des had seen either or both several times near another lake, one with a blonde mermaid residing in it. The furry woman had a human shape, with pleasant curves, but was covered entirely in soft-looking fur—overall it was brown, but in a symmetrical and fascinating design, some areas more golden, others more orange-rusty, and still others were deep sepia. It created an effect that made her harder to identify in the dark, though it was quite striking in the light. Her long-furred tail was currently raised, keeping it off the ground.

Theo waved to Des, and beckoned her over.

The other two looked around quickly, instantly alert.

“C'est bon,” Theo said, slowly and distinctly. “Mon amie.”

The green fae tilted his head to one side, then said, just as carefully, “Està bien. Mi amiga. Sí?”

Theo nodded. “Des.”

“Des.” The green fae gestured to himself. “Orfeo. Paz.” He waved to his companion, who nodded.

“Frenz?” Des said questioningly, crouching next to the water with a hand on the ground. It probably should not be at all surprising that, with the collars finally removed, Theo had promptly begun to look for people to form connections with.

“Friends,” Theo agreed. “I'm pretty sure they're speaking Spanish. Which I don't. But Spanish and French are both Romance languages, and I can speak French as well as I can English, so we're sort of groping around trying to find words with similar equivalents. Some of it is charades, and it's all a bastardized mess. Proper sentences and grammar aren't any use, when we're just trying to find vocabulary for essential concepts. But from what you and Erica have said, there aren't any other friendship groups that cross fae types, so I think they might be more like us than anyone else around.”

“Remember?”

“I'm not sure. They hesitated a lot over names.” She looked back at the other pair. “As-tu des souvenirs? Memoire? Ton passé?”

Expressions turned sad. “Memoria? Nuestro pasada...” Orfeo made an expressive gesture, flinging something to the sky or over his shoulder. “Mala.” He scooped up a handful of gravel. “Memoria.” He spread his long thin fingers, and allowed many to trickle away, before closing his hand tightly around the remainder. Then he gave them a questioning look.

“Des, pick up some stones,” Theo said.

Des obliged.

Theo wrapped her own hands around Des', keeping the stones in place. “Bonne memoire. Nos amies... nuestra amigas? Sept.” She released Des' hands and showed seven fingers. “Triste.” She traced tear lines down her cheeks. “Nos familles... les gens que nous aimons... Damn, this is probably too complex, especially this early.”

Orfeo nodded. “Nuestra familias. La gente que amas. Perdidos. Triste.”

“Perdus. Sí. Lost. Although I suppose we're really the ones who are lost,” she added to Des. “But getting that across... good luck. I'll settle for anything I can get right now.”

Des nodded. If anyone could work out effective communication without a common language, Theo could, she was sure. “We nee' frenz. Unfrenz ou' there.” Talking out loud was a struggle. Her rather feline teeth and tongue were just not well-suited to making some human sounds, and she knew that even some of the ones she could sort-of enunciate came out wrong. She had to think through entire sentences to make sure that she had a chance of being understood without requiring sounds she simply could not even approximate. Sometimes, that seemed impossible.

At moments it amused her. At others, it frustrated her.

“Oh, sorry. Got distracted. I saved you some of my fish. Sorry, only Barry's been by so far, and he didn't bring anything you'd want. Maybe later on.”

Des felt her ears flatten and her tail twitch spasmodically. “You mus' ea'.” She knew Theo was still being given the tainted bread, and was disposing of it in a waste pit in a cave under the waterfall; the rest of the food that was delivered daily was a mixture of fish and vegetables and fruit. Erica supplemented it with what she gathered, and there were irregular little treats and snacks appearing from the other three henchmen intended to keep Theo friendly, but still...

“So must you. And you're extremely active, more so than I am.” Theo slipped off the rock and ducked underwater briefly, then returned with a sealed plastic container, brushing sand off the top.

Des sighed but snapped open the container. The scent of the fish made her salivate instantly.

Zach got a substantial all-meat meal once a day, and always saved her some, insisting that he didn't need as much as they brought, and that he could tolerate Erica's contributions more easily than Des could. JC did her best to scavenge anything carnivore-ish from the kitchen but Des feared she might get herself in trouble doing that to excess.

She'd found four lake systems, evenly spaced near the edges, that housed frogs and fish of multiple varieties, one of which loved to jump out of the water dramatically in a shimmering silver splash, but catching and cleaning and cooking them was a problem that so far had no solution. None of them had that as a skill set, and cooking fish in the house would certainly draw attention.

There were friendly house fae that had set up their own little neutral-ground sanctuary in some “ruins.” At least two seemed to enjoy her presence and encouraged her to come back, but she was worried that asking them repeatedly for food like a stray cat was probably going to mean wearing out her welcome. Maybe if she could catch some fish and take it to them...

Being an obligate carnivore was complicating life not only for her but for her friends, but attempts at eating raw vegetable matter had not been significantly more successful or more comfortable than Theo testing her ability to leave the water for long.

She tried to go slow with the fish, in hopes of tricking her stomach into thinking there was more than there was, but there was a limited volume—even though she suspected this was most of what Theo had been given if not all of it—and she could happily have eaten several times as much.

The brief exchange between furry Paz and green Orfeo, who both looked concerned, lost Des entirely, but she caught the word gata and Paz touched her abdomen.

Settling back on her haunches to lick her fingers thoroughly clean, Des looked at Theo.

“My guess,” Theo said, “is that Paz is asking if you're not getting enough food, and Orfeo just pointed out that cats eat meat.”

Des shrugged. “Frenz help.”

“Going to take a nap?”

“No' naaoo.” It was much too early to visit JC or Alison, and Zach was probably asleep, but she could go looking for Erica or drop by the wisp swamp to see Suzi, or just explore further. She got up and stretched.

Paz scrambled to her feet and beckoned. “Ven conmigo?”

Des looked at Theo.

“Probably, viens avec moi? Come with me?” Theo suggested.

Des shrugged and nodded. Communicating verbally was going to be virtually impossible, since Des' knowledge of French included only what had been required in school, and she couldn't pronounce even that very clearly—English was hard enough. But verbal communication wasn't the only kind.

Paz was nearly as light on her feet as Des—and less prone to getting distracted. Fortunately, she was also patient about Des straying briefly to investigate interesting bits of landscape or indications of other fae having been in an area.

She found only the second instance she'd seen yet of a campfire. It was in a rocky bit of ground, near a spring, and a couple of forked sticks and a longer one stained with something dark suggested that something had been cooked here.

Interestingly, that was the only time Paz urged her to hurry. “Los malos,” she said, looking around nervously.

*Ali? Ask Theo what 'los malos' means please?* She circled the firepit, and found a pile of feathers, finely striped in black and white, and a few other organic odds and ends—a beak and bird feet, mostly. Fastidiously, Des dug her nails into the nearest soft ground to dig a hole. Paz sighed and knelt across from her to help.

*Um... Theo says the root word is probably 'bad' and it might mean something like the bad things or the bad people. Why?*

*Found the remains of a campfire. Theo's friend Paz is really uncomfortable.*

*Maybe you should pay attention? And Theo, maybe you could make asking about bad people a priority if you're making friends?*

*I'll try,* Theo replied, via Alison. *Communication is pretty dicey at the moment, trying to use French to talk to people who only speak Spanish, but I'll put that on the list.*

Des used a handful of leaves from a tree to keep from touching the mess directly while she shoved it into the hole, then she scooped dirt back over it. She knew there were earthworms, and she'd seen wood breaking down so presumably there were microbes here that made things decay. Since they were all living in a very finite amount of space, though, leaving waste like that was just rude.

But if one or more fae had roasted a chicken here, where had they gotten it? She'd seen small flocks here and there, although she carefully avoided them because of the aggressive behaviour of the ones she thought were roosters. She hadn't realized there was one close to here. She was an urban kid, she knew nothing about their behaviour or just how dangerous they could be, and her knowledge of how they went from living creatures to meat in her kitchen was extremely vague and theoretical, so she always avoided them. Chicken and pigeon and fish all appeared on the menu provided by the house fae collective, so at least one of them must have some idea what to do, but it was no more part of Des' personal experience than wizardry.

Des rinsed her hands in the stream that flowed from the spring, then abandoned the site and went on, to Paz's obvious relief. They were back into forest cover before long. Since it was a mix of deciduous and coniferous, she figured they were midway between the hub and the rim.

Des could hear sounds before there was anything to see. Chicken noises?

Still behind the last of the trees, they could see right down into one of the many pocket-sized valleys. As usual, it had a spring and stream of its own. This one seemed to have a wild mixture of plants thriving in it—some of them tall and grainlike, but others shorter, and there were several smallish trees that seemed not to be all the same type. That seemed to be generally typical for territory the chickens liked. She didn't know what they did in the winter. Maybe they followed the seasons.

On the ground, searching industriously for seeds to eat, were at least a dozen chickens, all with that white-and-black fine barring. The comb and the rest of that stuff on the head was red. They were surprisingly large and fierce and long-legged creatures—Des had believed chickens to be plump and sedentary and more or less flightless, or at most quick and alert grain-eaters like the diminutive bantams in the pen near the house, but she saw one flutter effortlessly up to a branch, and another dragged a worm relentlessly out of the ground and swallowed it.

Paz beckoned to her, and led her around the top of the valley, her attention on the ground below. She finally motioned to Des to stay there, and ventured out herself, using the taller patches of greenery as cover and moving stealthily, her gaze alternately flicking across her surroundings and then down to the ground beneath her. Des kept watch, puzzled. A short way from the stream, in a particularly tall tangle of plants, Paz crouched and retrieved something, then went onward to the stream and did something in it. She stopped at the same place again on her way back, and returned to Des with a white object in each hand.

Back in the trees, she pressed one of them into Des' hand. “Huevos,” she said.

Clearly, that meant egg, because that was what Des was now holding, still wet with stream water.

Paz held up her own. “Agua.” She gestured with her free hand, miming a ripply surface at shoulder height, and held out the egg. “Huevo malo...” She mimed placing the egg in the water, moved the egg upwards to the imaginary surface, then pretended to toss it away. “Buen huevo...” She showed the egg drifting downwards, hitting her free hand as though it were the bottom, then pretended to eat it.

*Anyone know whether fresh eggs sink and bad eggs float?*

*Yes,* Alison said. *I don't even need to ask. My grandmother taught me that.*

*Cool, thanks.*

Paz turned the egg in her hands, small end up, and very carefully bit down, making a small hole in the end. Then she tipped the contents into her mouth and swallowed twice. Wiping her lips with the back of one hand, she smiled and dropped the empty shell.

Some human voice in the back of Des' mind whimpered that raw egg was disgusting and invited disease.

She was hungry, and she'd always liked eggs, and her feline fae instincts seemed to recognize this as food. Besides, there was unlikely to be any disease here.

She went slowly while nibbling a hole in the shell, reluctant to have the whole thing shatter. Briefly, she hesitated, then shrugged mentally and gulped it down. There wasn't much taste, really, just a slippery sliminess that was unpleasant for a heartbeat.

It was, at least, food, and it was probably safe to assume that it would make her less ill than vegetable matter had.

“Thank you.” With how hissed the initial sound always came out, and the tendency to slur K towards G, she wasn't sure Paz could figure it out. “Merci? Gracias?”

Paz smiled. “Bonita gata.” She giggled. “Felina feliz.” She patted Des on the shoulder. “Ven conmigo?”

Des went with her, wondering what else she might learn this way.

* * *

As the sky darkened past twilight into true night, or at least what passed for it, Des turned towards the hub. She'd parted ways with Paz some time ago, after an educational and interesting afternoon, and had made the time for a catnap in her hidden underground den.

She slowed her pace as she approached the ring of walls, but kept going. Anyone feeling isolated was bad. JC couldn't easily stray far from the house, and Alison couldn't leave the stable and pasture at all without the bar being removed from the outside. While Theo had trouble leaving the lake, at least Des and Erica could reach her freely, and Suzi and Zach with a little more effort.

Carefully, she slunk towards the house. *All clear?* she asked, via Alison.

*Not yet,* JC said. *Isabel is still up. And I still hear movement upstairs. Wait. They might still come down for something, or notice if the stable's not barred.*

*Waiting,* Des said. If it weren't for the magical locks on the door, she'd have slipped into their previous home and curled up there until JC declared it safe; as it was, she untied her sarong and used it as bedding, curling up on the far side of a square blocky building that she thought was storage.

From there she could see the entranceway to the structure known as the boom-room, the one the wizards forbade anyone to go in, even to clean. What was in there, anyway? Like the structure in which they'd been confined overnight previously, it had a round footprint and a domed roof; unlike the other structure, this one had an arc of wall taller than Des built about four feet in front of the door.

Alarms never seemed to work on her, and there was certainly no one in there at the moment.

She scooped up her sarong and tossed it over one shoulder as she got up.

The door was wood, and not very sturdy at that.

Unfortunately, it was locked. While she was quite sure she could get in, she would have to destroy the door to do so, and that would draw far too much attention. Resigned, she went back to her previous spot and got comfortable again to wait.

She was halfway dozing when Alison said, *Jace says all clear. Go get something to eat before you come say hi to me, eh?*

Several raw eggs had helped, but she was definitely still hungry. It was hard to argue with that.

Still wary, Des slunk around to the kitchen door.

It was open already; JC, at the stove, looked over her shoulder and beckoned her in. That smile was still a little unsettling, since by default, JC showed no expression at all, and anything she did show was a conscious choice. It wasn't that it looked wrong. It included her eyes and all the other little peripherals that subtly conveyed that a smile was genuine. Maybe it was just knowing. JC, Des thought, edged alarmingly close to the Uncanny Valley at moments.

But, JC had no more say in what she was than Des or any of them did, and was still JC, so Des ignored that.

JC handed her a bowl with the contents of a can of tuna in it, then turned back to the stove; Des didn't bother with silverware, just scooped it out with her fingers and tipped the bowl up to drain the water, licking it clean—a feline tongue might make it more difficult to pronounce several key sounds, including the first letter of her own name, but it had distinct advantages in other ways. With the bowl clean, she set it in the sink and licked her fingers clean as well.

JC passed her a plate with heaven on it: an omelette.

“Be careful,” Des growled.

JC shook her head, candy-apple-red ponytail swishing back and forth. “Eggs, I can cover, the bantams produce so many no one counts. Unfortunately, meat is harder. But this is just cheddar from a brick already open, and bacon and sausage precooked for breakfast tomorrow. He'll assume a miscount or someone's midnight snack. They do that a lot. I disappeared in the corner when I heard Barry come down last night.”

JC's stealth was very unlike Des', but highly effective in the house. It was impossible for them to keep her presence in the forefront of their minds when she was quietly cleaning, just part of the background, and even harder when she let her joints lock and went unnaturally motionless. If it had kept JC from an encounter alone with Barry in the middle of the night, Des was all the more grateful for it.

They didn't even know that she could talk. Vocalization needed the same conscious effort facial expressions and movement did, and JC had no desire to talk to them, so they had no evidence she wasn't as mute as Erica.

JC set a fork on the plate. “Eat, before it gets cold.” That smile again. “Normally I would add toast and maybe an orange or a tomato, but that seems pointless.”

Des rolled her eyes. Part of her wanted to eat with her fingers again, but it was probably hot and possibly messy, so she used the fork.

JC really was an awesome cook, even with something simple: there was just a trace of spice flavouring it, barely there but bringing out the rest of the flavours wonderfully, especially with enhanced fae senses. Des made herself go slow, enjoying it thoroughly.

Her family, while not extremely wealthy, had a stable and comfortable income, and had remained in the same smallish and generally progressive city in which his mother had grown up. Skin colour wasn't the overwhelming issue here it often could be south of the border, and intelligence and ability and education went a long way towards countering at least some of the rest. Her own skills had kept her life stable and comfortable since she'd finished university and found a steady job, which provided more than enough for her and two cats in a moderate two-bedroom apartment with an equally moderate car. She could keep her own tech gear fairly high-end, though not extravagant, and occasionally buy components she knew JC needed, passing them off as used ones she'd pulled from upgraded systems. She knew better than to snatch up every item of clothing or makeup for Desiree that caught her eye, but she had no serious trouble acquiring enough at reasonable quality, while still keeping some money squirreled away for emergencies like vet visits.

Genuine deep uncertainty about her next meal was a new and unpleasant experience. Fear that her friends would go hungry or get caught helping her made it much worse.

She finished, purring, and licked the fork, then the plate, to get every trace.

“Yummmm.”

JC cupped a hand around her cheek; the dark lining and long lashes and intricate shading were unfamiliar, but the concern behind them was not. “I've never liked you eating a lot of junk, but if I had it, I'd even give you that right now. Being hungry sucks.”

Des nuzzled into her hand. “Am fine. Are you?”

“Of course I am. Aside from the usual rather enormous stresses and hoping like hell that Niko or Kayla or both can find us. Doing housekeeping and being overlooked is fairly close to normal life for me.”

Des was uncertain about the accuracy of that statement. But, if telling herself that helped JC to cope with a situation that sometimes felt just too overwhelming for coping to be possible, Des wasn't going to argue.

Besides, JC's hand had wandered up to the base of her ear and was scritching deftly around it with those perfect nails, and that felt distractingly good.

JC let her hand fall. “I'm going to clean up, then go do more research. Want to hang around and help? With the research, not the cleaning up.”

“Sure. Ali no' mind.” Erica was more comfortable with Alison, even in the stable, than she was in the house. JC needed company as much as she needed extra hands and eyes—stealthy ones.

It took only a moment for JC to wash bowl, plate, fork, frying pan, and spatula, and dry them to put away, leaving no trace to draw attention. Des, meanwhile, stole a glass of milk. She was still getting used to dairy products not causing any digestive problems, so the flavour was taking a bit of adjusting, but it meant a few extra calories and wouldn't make her sick.

With that glass clean and left in the drying rack, they went looking for more information.

And the best source was in Isabel's study.

Unlike their first attempt, which felt like a lifetime ago and had nearly been a disaster, it was now fairly simple to slip into Isabel's study. If Isabel woke, Des could crouch in a corner, and without her wrap, she'd be hard to see in the shadows, her tabby stripes even breaking up her outline; if JC could get as far as the sitting room, her presence would be dismissed as long as she was visibly cleaning or straightening something, and it was possible it would be even in the study itself. Meanwhile, as long as they stayed silent and communicated via Alison, and took care about every motion, there should be nothing to disturb Isabel and no reason she should ever know they were there.