The door banged open. "Food," a goblin said in his harsh voice, and dumped down a big leaf on which were two chunks of meat.

Che lifted his head. "We can't eat if we remain tied," he pointed out.

Grudgingly the goblin touched his knot, and Che's hands came free. Then the goblin touched Jenny's knot, and it relaxed and let her go. "But don't try anything dumb, you dumbbells," he warned as he backed out the door and slammed it shut. They heard it being barred outside.

"I can't eat that!" Jenny exclaimed.

"Neither can I," Che agreed. "Unless the leaf is edible."

"Oh, you do not eat meat either?" she asked.

"I would not eat this meat. You do not recognize it?"

Jenny peered more closely. She screamed. "It's—"

"From the faun," he finished. "And the nymph."

Jenny tried to be sick, but there wasn't enough in her stomach to come up. She just heaved several times and stopped, gasping.

"I apologize," Che said. "I had thought you understood."

"No, I just don't like to eat meat or to hurt any animal,"

Jenny said, her tears blurring her vision. "I should have realized—" She was interrupted by another attempted heave.

"At least we are no longer tied," Che said. "I can make you light, and you can try to climb out the roof vent and escape."

"And leave you here to be—be—" She couldn't get past her choke. "No," she managed after a moment.

"I appreciate your generosity, but it is foolish. You should save yourself if you can."

"I never claimed to be sensible," Jenny said, unable to look in the direction of the door where the awful meat lay.

"Then perhaps we should rest again."

"Yes." She hoped it was possible.

They were quiet for a time. Jenny did not relax at all. The realization of that meat was haunting her, and she could not shove the horror from her mind.

"Jenny?" Che asked faintly.

"You can't relax either?" she asked, knowing the answer.

"Perhaps if you sang—"

A wash of another kind of chagrin left her cold. He had heard! She had thought he was asleep. "Oh, I couldn't do that," she protested, feeling the flush on her face.

"I apologize if I have transgressed," he said.

She couldn't answer, still feeling embarrassed.

After a time she heard a sniff, and then another. She looked at Che in the gloom and saw that he had his hands up covering his face.

Then she realized that he was trying to stifle tears.

She remembered that he was alone in much the way she was, having been abducted and roughly treated.

She remembered that he was only five years old. He spoke like an adult, which was apparently the way with centaurs, but he was only a child. A foal.

She remembered that they both faced a horrible fate. It was enough to numb her mind. What was it doing to his mind?