“Isn’t that what happened with you?” Zenor asked Nuella. “I mean, when we first met.”
Nuella smiled impishly at him. “I wasn’t wearing a collar, but I did manage to go for a stroll.”
“You’re lucky Cristov didn’t catch you,” Kindan remarked.
Nuella shook her head. “I’d smell him at least a dragonlength away—he wears that awful scent his mother likes.” She frowned in thought. “I wonder how good Kisk’s sense of smell is.”
The others considered her comment silently.
“I imagine we’ll find out,” Master Zist answered finally. He rose and stretched. “But not tonight. Nuella, it’s time for your lessons.”
“We could do them here,” she suggested hopefully.
“No, Zenor’s got to get some sleep,” the Harper replied. “I can’t ask him to stay here the extra hours it would take to finish your lessons before he walks you home.”
Zenor grimaced. “Master Zist is right. Mother needs me even now that Renna’s gotten big enough to look after the others some more.”
“She’s doing most of the work Kindan used to do, isn’t she?” Nuella remarked. Master Zist cleared his throat warningly. Nuella frowned at the noise and turned back to Kindan. “It’s not as though you could do all your old work and look after a new hatchling, too, you know.”
“I suppose,” Kindan agreed morosely. “But it seems that all I do is look after the hatchling.”
Zenor gave him a commiserating look. “She’ll grow up before you know it, Kindan. And then you can help us in the mines.”
With that bit of encouragement, they left. Kindan curled up in a warm spot, and Kisk draped herself over and around him with a series of chirps and squeals. But she didn’t sleep. First she twitched one way and then she twitched another way. Kindan moved away from her, but Kisk moved back toward him and curled up again.
Kindan was finally drifting toward sleep when a warm tongue licked along the side of his jaw. Kindan blearily opened one eye and saw that Kisk was lying next to him, her head raised to look him in the face. He made a soothing sound and closed his eye.
He was licked on the other cheek. He opened both eyes. Kisk cocked her head at him and, with a chirp, darted her tongue out to lick him on the chin.
“Hey! Stop it!” Kindan shouted grumpily. Kisk recoiled at his tone and made a sad click. “I’m tired, it’s time to sleep—oh, no! Don’t tell me that you’re not tired!” Please don’t tell me you’re not tired, he thought to himself.
Within five minutes Kisk had made it abundantly clear that she wasn’t tired at all. In fact, she wanted to play. She found one of his shoes and grabbed it in her mouth, tossing it in the air and catching it with a claw, and then tossing it back to catch it with her jaw again.
“Hey, that’s my shoe,” Kindan complained, grabbing for it. In a moment, as the little watch-wher tossed it out of his grasp, he realized that he’d made a big mistake. He had taught Kisk the fun game of finders-keepers. It took him ten minutes and a handful of scraps to get his shoe back.
And still Kisk showed no signs of sleepiness. Instead, she started rooting around the shed. She grabbed the curtain with a claw and played at flipping it back and forth, pausing at first when the outdoor light startled her. She hissed and turned her head away hastily, but after a moment, she turned back to the dim night light and stuck her head under the curtain.
Kindan found himself leaping to his feet to grab Kisk’s tail before she could dart out. As it was, it took all of his effort to get her to hold still long enough for him to hastily rig a halter out of some old rope before she tugged him outdoors—no mean feat for a creature that was barely up to his kneecaps.
“Okay, okay!” Kindan said as the watch-wher pulled him down toward the lake. “We’re going to the lake, Kisk, is that what you want?” He remembered how Zenor had talked to his littlest sister, always telling her what she was seeing and what was happening. So he began a narration of their journey down to the lakeside where Kisk sniffed at the water and, after a few daring darts of her tongue, lapped up a good several mouthfuls of fresh water.
“Were you thirsty, then?” Kindan asked. “Did you want to get a drink?” Kisk looked up at him, blinked her big eyes, and gave a little cheep that Kindan couldn’t interpret.
“Apparently not,” he muttered to himself when the watch-wher yanked her head around and nearly pulled Kindan off his feet.
“Those are the cots, Kisk, you don’t want to go there,” Kindan told her. “People are sleeping and they aren’t much fun.”
But Kisk wasn’t interested in that; what had caught her attention was the forest just beyond the line of cabins. She sniffed about at the smaller plants, tried and spat out any number of bushes—fortunately Kindan knew of none in the vicinity that were poisonous, or he would have been more worried—and worked her way up alongside the pathway that led back toward Kindan’s old, now Tarik’s, house.
“Are you ready to go to sleep?” he asked, keeping his voice low and soft in hopes of inspiring his charge. Kisk looked up at him and gave him a wide-awake chirp which was anything but reassuring. She started sniffing toward Tarik’s cothold, and Kindan grew alarmed at the notion of attracting Tarik’s attention and, doubtless, wrath.
Somehow Kisk must have guessed his feelings, for she made another little inquisitive noise, sniffed at him, snorted at the house, and turned her attention elsewhere. She bounded toward a bush and hissed angrily at it.
It was then that Kindan realized they were not alone.
“She won’t bite, will she?” whoever was hiding behind the bush asked nervously. It was Cristov.
“She bit me,” Kindan said irritably, lying to impress him. Kisk looked back at him and snorted. “But that’s because I was blooded to her, you see.”
Cristov stepped out from behind the bush. “She’s pretty small,” he noted. “Were her teeth sharp?”
Kindan held out his bandaged hand. “See for yourself.”
“You’d better leave it wrapped until it’s healed,” Cristov said, pushing Kindan’s hand away.
“Suit yourself,” Kindan said brusquely. He and Cristov had barely said two words to each other in the past Turn, and before that they’d either fought until dragged apart or ignored each other contemptuously. “What are you doing out—skulking?”
Cristov’s hands balled into fists and he looked angrily at Kindan.
Kindan frowned. “I’m sorry. That was mean. But honestly, what are you doing out tonight?”
“I—well—” Cristov found himself tongue-tied, searching for an answer. At last he blurted out, “Mother says that watch-whers are nice. I wanted to see for myself.”
Kindan’s eyes widened in surprise. Kisk gave a surprised noise herself and craned her neck up to peer at Cristov, pointing her tail nearly straight back for counterbalance. Kindan was surprised to see how high she could lift her head on her long, sinuous neck—it almost reached his neck.
“I know my father doesn’t like them,” Cristov continued breathlessly, holding out a hand palm up to the watch-wher, “but my mother says we should respect them. She says, ‘A grown-up makes their own decisions.’ ”
Kisk darted her tongue out and licked Cristov’s outstretched hand before he could pull it back. She made a sad, don’t-you-like-me noise at Cristov.
“She gets scared by sudden moves,” Kindan warned him. Honesty compelled him to add, “I think she likes you. I haven’t seen her try to lick many people.”
Kindan forebore mentioning Nuella’s tart remark about the scent Cristov wore.
Encouraged, Cristov put his hand out again. At his sudden move, Kisk ducked her head behind Kindan’s back, but slowly she peered around again. In short order she licked his palm, muffled a sneeze, and darted her tongue quickly around the boy’s face.