"We want you healthy, so we can keep you a few days," the chief said. "If you don't eat, you'll be too weak to run, and you won't taste as good." He must have thought this was a reasonable statement.

"No, thank you," Jenny said. She hated being polite to this cruel goblin, but there seemed nothing to be gained by being impolite.

"Now you have a choice," Grotesk told them with a grimace he must have thought was a smile. "Eat your food or race right now." He showed them the two pieces of meat, one with a bite out of it.

Jenny looked at Che. She knew she wasn't going to touch the stuff, but he had to make his own choice.

He looked at the meat and at the pond a short distance away, and at her. "Sing to me," he murmured.

Jenny was astonished and chagrined. "I can't—" she protested.

"Yeah, tell her to eat it," Grotesk said, evidently mishearing. "So you won't have to race right now. We want to save you for another day, when we haven't just eaten."

"Before we die," Che said.

There was his answer: he wasn't going to eat. So they would have to play the goblins' cruel game, and hate each other, and be cooked. Che wanted to listen to her one more time before that happened. Could she say no?

But how could she sing before these horrible creatures? It had been hard enough to sing to Che alone!

"Come on, come on, make up your stupid mind," Grotesk snapped. The circle of goblins standing around them grinned, enjoying this.

She knew she had to do it. She had to give the centaur foal what little comfort she could. There would be no other chance. At least they would have this memory of their friendship, before the hate came.

She moved to Che and took his head in her hands. She wanted this to be just for him, because she just couldn't sing it for the goblins. She pretended that there was no one else here except the two of them. She put her mouth to his ear, closed her eyes, and hummed. In a moment she was able to hum louder. Her fancy began to form, a picture in her mind of the lovely castle on the mountain and the flowers at the base and the Princess picking the flowers and singing to them.

There was a goblin voice somewhere, calling something. "Well, haul some more wood in from the forest, then!" Grotesk said. "We need to keep the kettle hot, in case they don't eat."

Jenny sang louder, to squeeze out those awful words. The fancy firmed, and now the dragon was in it too, in his real form, but not being ferocious. She knew that Che had joined her picture, and that he was the dragon, hoping to carry her away to safety, if only he could fly.