“Percy, must you repeat that particular part?” hissed Rue, and then: “I do not lie.” She decided to risk her own safety for the sake of negotiation. “Your fellow can get his monkey shape back by moving away from me.”

Percy paused before translating. “Rue, you risk yourself unnecessarily.”

“If all else fails, I’ll dive in and touch another one.”

“You’re sure?”

“Repeat what I said, pleash, Pershy.” Rue once more found her jaw disobeying her. She wondered if English was ill-suited to monkeys.

Percy did as she asked.

The Vanara responded with a gesture at Rue’s victim. Without comment, the handsome man turned and trudged away.

“He’ll need to go further than that.”

He kept up his steady pacing until he was lost around a bend of the stream, back into the depths of the forest.

Eventually, Rue felt a tell-tale initial tremor and then her bones and muscles were re-forming. The pain made her wince but she managed to keep from moaning. Her tail vanished and she mourned its absence. The fur retreated back up her body, becoming her own tangled brown hair once more – that, at least, was gratifying. Rue was vain about her hair. She fluffed it forwards to cover as much of her torso as possible. She felt unmistakable physical loss as her monkey strength dissipated. This was so annoying that she was forced to consider seriously doing more physical exertion in the future. If I am to continue this new life as an adventuress I may have to train for it. The very idea! Her orange modesty scarf loosened about her waist and she quickly grabbed it and re-tied the side.

The Vanaras all about her gasped in awe. A few spoke out of turn, but the bejewelled monkey in front of Rue made a silencing gesture with his wrinkled hairy hand. They fell quiet, if not still. Vanaras, Rue was beginning to realise, were never still.

Her victim reappeared, walking back down the stream, once more in Vanara form, and pleased about it. Or as pleased as a man with a monkey face could look, which was more a stretching of the lips into a grimace.

The highly decorated Vanara, who Rue decided must be Alpha, began talking once more. Percy resumed translating.

“Remarkable, Foreign Devil––” Percy forcibly stopped himself. “But what kind of creature are you, who is no Vanara in truth but a thief of our shape?”

Rue was glad to have her own voice back – it was much less troublesome. “I know not the word in your language. We would say metanatural, the child of a soulless. Flayer, say the werewolves. Soul-stealer, say the vampires. Miss Sekhmet there calls me a skin-stalker.”

Percy did his best to translate, using Hindustani where he could, English words where he couldn’t.