Orfeus strode out through her garden, trying not to look at her plants. The rosemary was coming along. Would the fire reach here? Unlikely, but not impossible.

Something pressed against her ankles and Orfeus jumped. She looked down to see a splotch of white against a dimmer grey shadow.

Splodge miaowed and wound around her ankles. Orfeus blinked down at the cat, then realised she was crying, silently, the tears streaming down from her newly healed aching eyes as Splodge made small mrrs of comfort or curiosity.

Or just hunger. Orfeus blinked hard, pushing past the moment. At least this was better than crying where people could see. Stooping down, Orfeus scratched the cat behind the ears, then nudged it gently. “You get back inside,” Orfeus said. “Before your dad worries.” Splodge’s eyes shone with distant firelight as Orfeus straightened and scrubbed her sleeve hard over her face.

The three hunters, Wolf and Hyena and Shark, rigged a small gravi-capsule to float suspended between their hoverbikes. It was grim and small, windowless and padded on ceiling and wall and floor. They bundled her into it with her hands bound and tossed a bottle of water in after her.

She spent the flight with her back squared against one wall, hands held in front of her face, wondering why they’d bothered with tying her wrists. She’d burned through her Blood, and the tasegun was long gone. What was she going to do, card tricks?

There was the occasional toss of wild weather that bounced her against the walls of the capsule until her wrists ached, but otherwise little evidence in this windowless place of the passage of time. Orfeus jammed her feet into the corners and cocked her head. If she strained, she could hear the soft purr of their hoverbikes.

After a long while, the soft purr faded out. There was no more turbulence either. Orfeus waited. She opened the bottle with her teeth and drank, only coughing up some of it.

She leaned against the capsule wall. “Want to see my card tricks?” she called through it.

No answer, less surprising than an answer would have been.

One wall slid down. Orfeus stepped back from it. The Hyena stepped forward, eyeing her, then gave a nod. A second later the Shark darted in, eyeing Orfeus, relaxing when she didn’t lunge out or attack.

“You can get your belongings back once the Leader’s done with you,” they said, and apologetically patted the bag and bundle they carried. She felt that unspoken within their sentence was a loud and resonating if.

Some kind of response seemed required. Orfeus nodded. “You’re the Shark, I’m guessing?”

“The Shark, he and him.” He waved to the other one. “That’s the Hyena, she and her. Don’t piss her off.”

Orfeus nodded again.