She opened a drawer and found nothing but breadboards and a rolling pin. She considered the rolling pin briefly, but had no wish to baste her dinner with more rat-blood than she absolutely had to. She opened the cabinet beneath and found tins for muffins and molds for fancy desserts. She moved to her left, opened another drawer, and here was what she was looking for.

Mia considered the knives, took one of the meat-forks instead. It had two six-inch steel tines. She took it back to the row of ovens, hesitated, and checked the other three. They were empty, as she had known they would be. Something—some fate some providence some ka—had left fresh meat, but only enough for one. Mr. Rat thought it was his. Mr. Rat had made a mistake. She did not think he would make another. Not this side of the clearing, anyway.

She bent and once again the smell of freshly cooked pork filled her nose. Her lips spread and drool ran from the corners of her smile. This time Mr. Rat didn’t look around. Mr. Rat had decided she was no threat. That was all right. She bent further forward, drew a breath, and impaled it on the meat-fork. Rat-kebab! She drew it out and held it up in front of her face. It squealed furiously, its legs spinning in the air, its head lashing back and forth, blood running down the meat-fork’s handle to pool around her fist. She carried it, still writhing, to the sinkful of stagnant water and flipped it off the fork. It splashed into the murk and disappeared. For a moment the tip of its twitching tale stuck up, and then that was gone, too.

She went down the line of sinks, trying the faucets, and from the last one got a feeble trickle of water. She rinsed her bloody hand under it until the trickle subsided. Then she walked back to the oven, wiping her hand dry on the seat of her britches. She did not see Jake, now standing just inside the kitchen doors and watching her, although he made no attempt to hide; she was totally fixated on the smell of the meat. It wasn’t enough, and not precisely what her chap needed, but it would do for the time being.

She reached in, grasped the sides of the roasting pan, then pulled back with a gasp, shaking her fingers and grinning. It was a grin of pain, yet not entirely devoid of humor. Mr. Rat had either been a trifle more immune to the heat than she was, or maybe hongrier. Although it was hard to believe anyone or anything could be hongrier than she was right now.