Dan sat at the kitchen table, facing the sea snake family that had crowded on the other side. They were staring at him and avoiding his gaze at the same time, to the point the situation was becoming embarrassing.

“So,” Ulres finally broke the silence. “You survived. We didn’t expect that, after your friend told us that you never arrived at Aressea.”

“My friend?”

“A woman that came here after you left.”

“Saia,” Veylu, his wife, offered.

Dan couldn’t speak. The idea of Saia, or anyone else from the mountain for that matter, crossing the sea to appear at Aressea was absurd. But it made no sense for Ulres to know her name otherwise. If it was true, suddenly what Irdes had told him made sense: there was someone keeping his brother asleep.

He realized he was smiling, but couldn’t bring himself to stop.

“Where is she?”

“We don’t know,” Ulres said. “She left the village, probably to look for you.”

“There was someone else with her,” Veylu added. “A person that didn’t show their face and didn’t talk much, but they seemed to be on her side. Didn’t you meet them?”

“No. I’ve been…” He caught himself in time before mentioning the strays. “In the area.”

“She was very angry at us for the way we treated you,” Veylu added. “She was right. We shouldn’t have let you go on your own. But we were scared of what Mayvaru could do to us, and we didn’t know Beramas was looking for you as well.”

Dan felt a tightening pain in his throat at the idea of having almost met Saia again. After she’d disappeared with the monks, he couldn’t count how many times she had come back only to leave shortly after, and nobody could ever tell him where she was and what she was doing.

“Who’s Beramas?” he asked, trying to anchor his thoughts to the conversation. “I’ve heard his name before.”

“He operates mostly at Aressea,” Ulres said. “You don’t have to worry about him if you’re never going there.”

“He has my brother. He knows I’m here.”

They looked at each other.

“In that case,” Veylu said. “You should leave the country. Take the first ship and go to the other side of the sea. There are animal people everywhere.”

“But who is he?” Dan said. “What can he do?”

“Anything,” Ulres said. “As far as anyone knows. He’s more powerful than anyone in the families, even.”

“More powerful than Mayvaru?”

There was an instant of silence.

“Well, she was killed, right?” Ulres’s daughter said. “Or at least kidnapped.”

“Careful,” Veylu said, but her tone was tired more than threatening.

“But it’s true. Why would there be hunters around if she was still alive?”

“Hunters?” Dan asked.

Ulres sighed.

“If you live in a village you don’t have to worry about them, they usually target isolated families. And they’re not a danger to regular animal people.”

“In theory,” his daughter specified.

“Well, their methods are dangerous, but they have never killed anyone who wasn’t an animal before. Sure, it’s better if you never meet them in the first place, but if you do, follow their orders and you’ll be fine.”

His tone was meant to be reassuring, but Dan couldn’t stop thinking about the strays, and the fact they didn’t know about hunters. He needed to go back as soon as possible and tell them, but not before getting what he came for.

“Do you have some spare sea snake meat?” he asked. “I can’t go to Aressea right now.”

“Of course,” Veylu said, and stood to open the cabinets. The scene reminded him of when they had sent him away from their home, after Mayvaru’s visit. He was aware of the exact spot his brother was standing on when she’d entered. He tried his best not to glance at it too much.

The glass containers full of dried meat were handed to him inside a cloth bag. It was enough to last him a month.

“Are you sure I can take all of this?” he asked.

“Don’t worry, we can get them from our cousins at Aressea,” Ulres said. “Is there anything else we can do for you?”

Dan knew they were only helping him because Mayvaru wasn’t around anymore, but he still found their warmth nice.

“Yes,” he said, setting the bag aside. “I think my teeth are growing and I don’t know what to do.”

He grinned wide to show his canines. Ulres leaned forward, squinting a bit.

“They are,” he confirmed. “My kids had them at this length when they were four. They’re going to develop fast, especially if you eat sea snakes at every meal.”

Dan relaxed his mouth.

“Is it dangerous?”

“Not until you start developing venom. Then there’ll be a span of a few months when you’ll have to be careful not to bite your tongue until they can bend properly.”

“Bend?”

Ulres opened his mouth wide, to the point it became unsettling. His canines looked human, even if a bit rounded. They started to move, extending slowly until they became snake fangs long like half of his mouth. Dan realized he couldn’t see the bottom part when Ulres smiled because normally they were bent against his palate, protected by a layer of skin.

He retracted them quickly and closed his mouth.

“Cool,” Dan said.

“You’ll be able to do this soon. But the venom is dangerous to us, so you should be careful in the meantime. Some people build immunity by ingesting a drop of it at lunch.”

“What if I bite myself?”

“You’ll die,” Ulres’s daughter said.

“We’re a bit resistant to our venom, but not immune,” Veylu added. “And you’re still too human anyway. Let me see, we should still have some patterns…”

She left for an adjacent room. Dan heard her opening and closing drawers while muttering to herself.

When she returned, she was holding a rolled-up piece of paper. It was closed by a string and sealed with green wax.

“This is a pattern we bought from the painters when our nephew was born,” she said. “Place it against your skin and activate it to heal your blood of venom.”

She handed it to him with care. The detailed symbol of a hand holding a brush impressed on the seal and the thickness of the paper gave Dan the impression of holding something precious.

“Store it in a place where it won’t be squeezed or bent,” Veylu added. “It’s crucial that you keep it as intact as possible, so don’t open it until you need it and don’t keep it under the sun. And never, ever use it more than once. It’s dangerous.”

“The ink deteriorates after the first use,” Ulres answered to his confused glance. “If you activate it again, it could work as another pattern entirely and there’s no way to know which one. It’s best if you avoid it.”

Dan kept the rolled paper in his hand with the tip of his fingers, as if it was a sea snake itself.

“Are you sure you want to give this to me? What about your family?”

“We have another one,” Veylu reassured him.

“And we’re going to get a tattoo soon,” her daughter added, elbowing her brother. “So we’re not in danger anymore.”

Once again, the silence fell in the room as all the eyes turned to her.

“Yes,” Ulres said. “We’re not supposed to talk about it because it’s very illegal, but it’s possible to get the pattern tattooed.”

He pulled up his sleeve to show the pattern on his shoulder. He dropped the cloth.

“This way you’ll always be immune. The closest tattooers are at Aressea, though.”

Veylu raised a hand in front of his face, and he stopped talking.

“Tattoos are for adults. You’re at least sixteen, right?” she asked, peering into Dan’s eyes.

“Yes,” he lied.

Ulres delicately pushed aside his wife’s hand.

“In that case, look for Teormu. Her shop is disguised as a tailor on the fifth street, but she moves every few months.”

Dan thanked them and stood. He hung the bag from one shoulder, while the pattern went into a front pocket of his trousers.

“Be safe,” Ulres said while accompanying him to the door. “You have found a place to stay, right?”

“Yes, I’ve found some friends.”

“You seem to have a lot of them around, for a foreigner,” Ulres’s son commented.

“If you need more meat, come here,” Veylu said. “Don’t risk going to Aressea.”

Dan nodded. Their suggestions were starting to pile up, so he stepped out of the house and thanked them as he walked away backward. When he turned, Kaspuru was in front of him.

“Found the meat?” she asked, leaning forward to pry into the bag until her beak was inside it.

Dan nodded. As they walked back into the woods, the sun approaching the horizon, he realized that he would grow silver scales, just like Ulres and his family. The strays had only accepted him because they thought he was an outsider like them, but soon they’d have discovered his lie. Sibras was already angry at him, maybe he’d have decided to kick him out. His only hope was to become strong enough to be useful, develop his fangs as soon as possible, and maybe go to Aressea to buy some paint.

“There are hunters around,” he said.

He realized he hadn’t specified which kind of hunters, but Kaspuru’s feathers raised in alarm.

“That would explain why everyone’s scared,” she said. “We’ll tell Sibras. Maybe it’ll give him something else to focus on.”

Dan nodded and accelerated. He wasn’t used to finding his way in the dark, so Kaspuru had to steer him around a couple of times. At one point, she extracted one of her swords and put a hand on his shoulder, grip just tight enough to force him to slow down.

“Do you hear anything?” she asked, her fox ear twitching back and forth.

Dan stopped and waited a few seconds.

“No?”

Kaspuru stepped in front of him. He matched her caution, even if he couldn’t quite advance without noise as she did. It took half a towerlength in the dark before he started perceiving the clangs and screams. Kaspuru extracted her second sword.

“Wait here.”

Dan watched her march onwards alone. He wondered what to do: Autur had trained him, but he wasn’t ready to face an actual enemy. Still, he couldn’t bring himself to stay hidden in the woods alone. The memory of Mayvaru dragging away Morìc was still fresh in his mind. He didn’t want to stand back again.

He followed Kaspuru from afar, making so much noise she’d have undoubtedly noticed him hadn’t she been so focused on what was happening at the camp. Now the light was visible: either the fire was flickering wildly under an invisible wind, or it was obscured by people in constant movement.

Autur’s voice screamed something. Kaspuru jumped, then started running forward, disregarding all the rustling she was causing. Dan tried to keep up with her, but she soon disappeared from view, becoming just another shadow in front of the fire.

He crouched and stepped from tree to tree. The camp had been upturned and covered in nets, viscous liquids and darts. Autur’s giant shape was moving back and forth, dodging and hitting with her sharp trunk a group of attackers that had surrounded her. Dan saw a weapon that looked like a giant dart with curved spikes coming out of her shoulder. A net was covering half of her body, forcing her to fight with one arm and constantly move to protect her incapacitated side. She screamed in fury at every movement.

Kaspuru appeared behind her, dealing with three enemies in a quick series of movements. Dan couldn’t avert his eyes, but thankfully the irregular light of the fire made it difficult to see the details of what was going on. He noticed the people face-down in the soil, only a few of them still moving, and felt a shiver. Kaspuru and Autur seemed to be in control of the situation, so he felt like he could look for the others without fearing they would be killed while he wasn’t looking.

Two attackers were carrying something away. He only recognized Sibras thanks to the long hood of his cloak dragging behind him. He was wrapped up in more ropes than necessary, but Dan imagined he didn’t give the attackers enough time to make a better job.

Merekis appeared for an instant, arm wrapped around a hunter’s neck and tentacle around their neighbor. He slit their throats, but a third hunter managed to cut his tentacle with a sword before he could disappear again. Merekis let out a hissing scream and staggered back, colors rippling through his skin. A hunter was behind him in an instant, knocking him down with a blow to the head. Dan grabbed the tree trunk in front of him to steady himself.

“We should kill him,” one of the hunters commented while wrapping him up in a rope.

“No killing,” another hunter screamed from the opposite side of the campfire, aiming his weapon at Kaspuru. “They’re monsters, but they could be people.”

“They’re killing us!”

“Because you’re a bunch of incompetents,” the man screamed back.

As if to make a point, he fired his weapon right as Kaspuru was advancing toward him. Dan stood, holding himself back from screaming, but the dart became a net that enveloped Kaspuru whole. Her swords got stuck in it and were yanked away from her hands, and she could only fall down while a hunter started pulling the net from under her feet. He had to bend to avoid Autur’s swipe with her blade.

“Run away,” Kaspuru yelled. “You can save us later.”

Autur kept attacking, but the hunters were closing in on her. She slashed the piece of net that was keeping her trapped and charged through them, disappearing into the woods. Only a few ran behind her, but she was too quick.

Tagu, Dan realized at that moment. He couldn’t see her anywhere, not even among the bodies on the ground. He saw three hunters clustered around a tree on the right side of the clearing. He approached in that direction, trembling so hard it was difficult to stay hidden. He broke into a run when one of the hunters started shooting darts into the foliage, one after the other.

Tagu dropped down onto his face and slashed it with her claws. She bolted away from him, but another hunter captured her in a net before she could reach the next tree. She thrashed around furiously, limbs going in every direction, enveloping herself completely.

Dan remembered Sibras’s words about Tagu being only eight. He knew he should follow Kaspuru’s suggestion and hide, find Autur, then decide what to do together. But he was a human: he didn’t run any actual danger if Ulres’s words were true, and why would a coward like him lie about how dangerous the hunters were? But Tagu was almost certainly a cat, and if someone didn’t help her hide it, the hunters could find out.

He filled his pockets with the smallest jars of meat and sprinted toward her. The hunters spotted him, so he screamed and showed his teeth. He managed to plunge into their midst and grab the net, but Tagu was still thrashing, so he couldn’t drag her away. It didn’t matter: his plan was getting captured, and a net was already closing on him. He pretended to fall while the hunters laughed all around him, Tagu’s net still in his clutch. He tied them together as best as he could, hoping it was enough to convince the hunters not to separate them.

They didn’t even notice. They dragged both of them across the camp, over their things and clothes. Dan watched them catch in the meshes of his net. Then the camp disappeared, replaced by trees and rough terrain. Dan kept his head raised from the ground and told Tagu to do the same, even if she was crying so loud he wasn’t sure she had listened. He remembered her calling the strays her family and didn’t know how to reassure her, just like he hadn’t known what to tell Morìc every time one of his most promising carpets didn’t work as he hoped.

“It’s going to be alright,” he said, even if he had repeated that lie enough times to know it never worked.