Overholser, unused to being balked in such a way—flabbergasted, in fact—tried one more time. “I’d have the feather, do ye, I beg!”

“No,” Tian said. “Later if it does ya, but not now.”

There were actual cheers at this, mostly from the smallest of the smallhold farmers and some of their hands. The Manni did not join in. They were now drawn so tightly together that they looked like a dark blue inkstain in the middle of the hall. They were clearly bewildered by this turn. Vaughn Eisenhart and Diego Adams, meanwhile, moved to flank Overholser and speak low to him.

You’ve got a chance,Tian thought. Better make the most of it.

He raised the feather and they quieted.

“Everyone will have a chance to speak,” he said. “As for me, I say this: we can’t go on this way, simply bowing our heads and standing quiet when the Wolves come and take our children. They—”

“They always return them,” a hand named Farren Posella said timidly.

“They return husks!”Tian cried, and there were a few cries of Hear him . Not enough, however, Tian judged. Not enough by far. Not yet.

He lowered his voice again. He did not want to harangue them. Overholser had tried that and gotten nowhere, a thousand acres or not.

“They return husks. And what of us? What is this doing to us? Some might say nothing, that the Wolves have always been a part of our life in Calla Bryn Sturgis, like the occasional cyclone or earthshake. Yet that is not true. They’ve been coming for six generations, at most. But the Calla’s been here a thousand years and more.”

The old Manni with the bony shoulders and baleful eyes half-rose. “He says true, folken . There were farmers here—and Manni-folk among em—when the darkness in Thunderclap hadn’t yet come, let alone the Wolves.”

They received this with looks of wonder. Their awe seemed to satisfy the old man, who nodded and sat back down.

“So in time’s greater course, the Wolves are almost a new thing,” Tian said. “Six times have they come over mayhap a hundred and twenty or a hundred and forty years. Who can say? For as ye ken, time has softened, somehow.”

A low rumble. A few nods.

“In any case, once a generation,” Tian went on. He was aware that a hostile contingent was coalescing around Overholser, Eisenhart, and Adams. Ben Slightman might or might not be with them—probably was. These men he would not move even if he were gifted with the tongue of an angel. Well, he could do without them, maybe. If he caught the rest. “Once a generation they come, and how many children do they take? Three dozen? Four?

“Sai Overholser may not have babbies this time, but I do—not one set of twins but two. Heddon and Hedda, Lyman and Lia. I love all four, but in a month of days, two of them will be taken away. And when those two come back, they’ll be roont. Whatever spark there is that makes a complete human being, it’ll be out forever.”