The pup stirred enough to nuzzle my neck, and a grim certainty settled over me as its blunt muzzle searched along my jaw, the way it had in the weeks following my mother’s death when I’d woken from grief to find my younger sisters’ eyes glued to me from within their round faces, waiting for someone to tell them what to do now that the world had stopped ending and the sun was shining and the roses in my mother’s garden were again in bloom.

A pup might die somewhere, someday, but not this pup.

The Huntress watched me. Torchlight cast the queer shadows on her face I was slowly growing accustomed to, and I tried to block out the sound of rustling leaves. At last she nodded, turning on a silent heel and leading the way back to the kitchen.

She remained silent throughout most of the meal. I ate quickly, the pup curled up in my lap. Her fur, for the pup was female, was dark and dull, and her bones felt fragile as eggshells. My conviction flagged, and the strange rustling at the edge of hearing threatened to drive me mad. She was not as small as I had first believed, but still small enough that I suspected milk was the best choice.

I had no milk.

I eyed the soft chunks of meat floating in the stew and tore a small strip off to feed to the pup.

“No,” the Huntress said, green eyes lidded as she studied me with that quiet, unreadable look that I had seen so often in the eyes of her wolves over the past week.

“Then what should I do?”

“Give it here.”

She held out her hands and I passed the bundle of fur to her after only a few moments of hesitation. Its wormy little tail wagged as it recognized her scent, and I inched to the edge of my seat, ready to snatch it back at the first hint of violence.

Instead, she nestled it in the crook of one arm, took a bite of stew meat, and began to chew methodically, her eyes never leaving mine.

“I don’t—” I began, but then she put her mouth to the pup’s, and I fell silent. The tail wagged some more, and the blunt muzzle lifted. I watched with my stomach turning as the Huntress let out a fine dribble of chewed meat. The pup lapped at it, first tentatively, then vigorously, and the Huntress spat the rest of the meat into her hand.

Revulsion warred with hope.

“You are lucky,” she said, letting the pup nose through the brown slop. “It knows what solid food is.”

I refrained from pointing out that chewed meat was hardly solid.

“So it will live?” I asked. My hands twitched, ready to take back the pup.