Orfeus hesitated a moment, then knelt. The motion made her side tear and ache; it wasn’t bleeding but she was missing a whole chunk of her, what a strange thought. She put a hand over her side and her mind hazed briefly with pain, then resettled. She could handle kneeling.

“You may stay here in this place and in any place of ours for as long as you are one of ours,” Luga said. He shifted, slowly, deliberately, and took the crown of twining black antlers that hung on his chair, and settled it on his head. He seemed to sit up a little straighter afterwards, but perhaps it was the illusion of height. “You may take shelter with anyone, and the wise will shelter you. The wise will fear you. You are the fangs and teeth of justice. I will send you where you are needed, and you will bring your prey down or die in the attempt.”

Orfeus knelt quietly. There were times to talk and times not to.

Luga leaned back. He rubbed his fingertips restlessly together. “What is your name, hunter?”

Orfeus glanced around, feeling the weight of the question. Who would she be, indeed. The singer, the coward, the runner, the trickster. The hider and burner and fleer of fate.

There were plenty of opportunities, plenty of names to take, predators she hadn’t yet seen in these halls. She could be the Serpent, the Spider. But Orfeus knew what she was: a clever wanderer, sly and quick, a hunter who’d been hunted. If she was to be remade, let her be remade as something with teeth.

“I’m the Fox,” Orfeus said.

A smile touched his pale lips, and Orfeus was truly startled. He had seemed like Faol, carved and unsmiling, but this man was a human man after all, or mostly. He leaned back, resting his chin on his hand. “You are,” he said.

Orfeus felt a shiver, all down her spine. She didn’t like kneeling. All at once, she did not like any plans that were behind those green hunter’s eyes.

Luga stirred, and glanced across at the Boarhound. “You will be armoured and fed here,” he said. Orfeus frowned, but kept her lips clamped tight together and did not say, you’re welcome for the addition to your stables however much it sounded like he was talking of a beast. “The best technology our far eyes can find, and whatever suits your style in the hunt. Claws and fangs for you, Fox. Armour. With the symbol of our Order, you can speak to your fellow hunters in the field.”

Dormarch started and then rummaged in ver clothing, producing something that gleamed and glinted in ver hand. Ve walked to Orfeus, a slow roll of a walk, leisurely, and held it out: an earring, hooked like a tooth.

Orfeus touched her ear, her own earring. Then she dropped her hand. “No,” she said.