Chih glanced down and saw that the floor of the hall was separated by bands of inlay running across the width, dark and light wood set to produce a repeating pattern of flowers. It was a lovely detail, and at the moment, a good way to make sure that the dozen or so children didn’t venture too close to the windows along the side or the doors.

Chih had never spent much time in the crèche at Singing Hills, but they knew enough to take the baby away from a terrified ten-year-old and to gather the rest around them at the rear wall.

“Everything looks very scary right now, doesn’t it?” asked Chih, cuddling the baby for comfort as much as anything else. “Who’s scared?”

The smaller children raised their hands, and a few of the older ones gave Chih unimpressed looks. Chih smiled, taking a seat, and gesturing for them to sit as well.

“Well, I’m very scared,” they said truthfully. “And you know, the moon’s daughter, Princess Shining, was very afraid as well when the word came that her mother’s lands were being devoured bite by bite from east to west. It could only be the Roaring Girl of Whistling Mountain, who was so hungry she could eat a kingdom, so Princess Shining went to meet her. What do you think Princess Shining took with her?”

Almost Brilliant came down from the rafters, perching on Chih’s knee.

“I think she brought along her mother’s spindle,” Almost Brilliant said, and then she fluttered to a little girl with her hair done up in braids. Chih wondered who had braided her hair for her, if they would be around to take the braids down that evening.

“What do you think Princess Shining took to meet the Roaring Girl?” asked Almost Brilliant curiously.

“Um. She brought an ox. A big one.”

“A big ox,” Chih marveled. “How clever of her. So she brought a spindle and an ox, and it was very important that she did so…”

Chih didn’t spend very much time with children, but they lived in stories, and for a little while, they could invite the children of Betony Docks into the house they made, offering them the fragile shelter of a story they had all built together.

The shelter collapsed with a boom that echoed throughout the hall. The barred doors at the far end buckled, and before anyone could run to shore it up again, they blew open, and a band of marauders in black crowded the entrance, flooding the hall.

Chih clutched the baby tighter, rising to their feet as the man in front, his hair pulled back by a black kerchief and his face nothing but hard lines and anger, stopped the rest.

“Master of Betony Docks, come out and face us.”

The gray-haired man with a cane, a pad of bandages still stuck under his arm, looked up from bandaging a young woman.