“Then why don’t you just leave?” he asked. “You are sleek enough. You could outrun any number of hunters.”

“And I’d end up like you, wandering aimlessly through the woods?”

“Things could be worse. As it seems you know. Why don’t you leave?”

“Because it would break his heart,” she replied, voice lower still. “It’s all he lives for. Not me, not them, but for the inebriation of being ruler, and passing it on. Fathers want one single thing: that their power will outlive them. It’s his only gift to me, after all.”

He wasn’t sure if he believed her rationale. Nonetheless, he believed her distress. She wasn’t just playing at being fussed.

“What is it you want?” he said again, more privately, hoping that she would surprise him with intimacy. “Are the tree elves right? Did you have some lover-Cat in the near vicinity, and is that why you balked so at leaving?”

“Did they say that?” Her head whipped around so fast he could only see the circumference of the circle described by the tips of her erect ears. He was afraid she would lunge off and slaughter the elves.

“No,” he quickly replied, rising. “I was fooling. It was my own thought, actually. Though I hope I was wrong.”

“You are so wrong at everything that if you ever started being right…” But she couldn’t finish her thought. She glared at him with perhaps the coldest look ever, but he imagined he saw a fringe of possibility flaring.

“You hope you are wrong,” she repeated. She took a step back, still looking at him. It was as if she were seeing him for the first time. He wished he’d had time to comb his mane. But in all his disarray, he preened for her anyway, tossed his head with a jerk at the neck. That usually got the human crowd, but good. She didn’t flinch. She moved an inch closer.

“Brrr,” she said. “Oh, Brrr. I’ve been rather a selfish thing today. You doing all this work, and just to get my attention. Now I see it. Now I see.”

“I like to work,” he lied.

“And they took advantage of you. That’s like them, you know. My kin. They make servants of guests. You realize of course that three Ivory Tigers could have pulled that cart easily enough from the front, if the elves had harnessed them into the leathers. But no, they all took advantage of your brute strength.”

He liked the way she said brute strength, even though his muscles were so tired that his back haunches were trembling. He hoped he was standing at such an angle that she couldn’t see. From some perspectives he actually didn’t look all that ineffectual, he guessed. He hoped.

“It was an honor to help,” he said again.

“Are you all right?” she said. “You look ill.”

“I’m fine,” he said. “It would be good to lie down and rest a bit. It has been a long day.”