Brella laughed in her periphery, snorting ale over the rim of her mug. She glanced at Scratch as she wiped her nose and leaking eyes. She grinned. Scratch briefly forgot what to do with her arms.

Dinner was served after nightfall when the untouched darkness of the forest welcomed a thick, twinkling canopy of starlight. Scratch stared up, unable to name a single constellation. Unlike last night, she knew to expect a sky full of strangers. Still, her internal compass spun.

“Stargazing?”

Brella sat down beside her and held out a plate of meat and veg. Scratch stared down at it and up again.

“For me?”

“No, for the God of the Heavenly Fast. Yes, for you, you tit.”

Scratch waited to tuck in until Brella returned with her own plate, piled high with steaming slabs of meat.

“Hungry?”

Brella grinned sheepishly. “They like to feed me. For some reason, the Snatchers think I need tending.”

“You?”

She shrugged. “Lollie always worried about me. I really think it was more about her needing to feel like she took care of someone than me needing the caring.”

“Seems like she’s got enough people to care for already.” Scratch indicated a pair of boys wrestling a few yards away. One kicked the other in the stomach, sending him directly into the side of a tent. It went down hard, tentpoles skittering away into the night.

“Quite.” Brella sipped her ale. “It’s her calling. All of these children grew up poor. Bad families or dead families. It was this or fend for themselves.”

Or the Academy, Scratch thought, but it wasn’t worth saying, especially now in this tenuous peace.

“She doesn’t take advantage of them,” Brella continued, biting into a steaming turnip. She held the hot morsel between her teeth for a few moments, then remorselessly spat it back onto the plate. “The robbery is mostly to cover the operating costs. That, and something to do. A common goal binds a group together.”

She thought of the octagon. Soldiers pointed out, then up, then farther up still.

“True enough.”

They ate in silence, surrounded by the songs of awakening nightbirds and chattering bandits. Someone brought out a mandolin and began to play, strumming wordless melodies into the warm night. She could hear James’s laughter drifting up from the other side of the fire, sweet and familiar, as he and Vel entertained a group of beaming youths with what sounded like a rather bawdy tale. She thought about scolding him but, well, these weren’t her kids. If Lollie had a problem with it, she could get up from the log she shared with one of the older Snatchers, the two of them murmuring together and shooting quick, unsubtle looks Scratch’s way.

Her skin prickled. “Hey Brella, what’s the story with you and—”