Supper that evening was barley stew thick with marsh greens and smoked eel, eaten around the wide stone fire ring while white steam rose from the surrounding hot springs into the purple dusk. Pip ate its own supper beside Ysabet’s boots—three handfuls of clean gray river gravel and a bowl of warm green spring clay that Iskren had dug from the lower bank to help its shell harden.
When the bowl was licked clean, Pip did not curl up under the boardwalk or go patrolling the perimeter for stray dangers. Instead, it trotted over to the drying racks, picked up the bound green reed loop and the small leather pouch of painted stones in its sideways jaws, and carried them back to the firelight.
It dropped the reed loop across Chaska’s boots and nudged the stone pouch against her shin with its nose.
Chaska looked down from the tin mug she was holding, surprised. “Again? You beat me twice before supper, you greedy little pot-licker.”
Pip tapped the reed loop once with its front foot, its green shell lights warming gently in the dusk.
“All right, clear a patch by the lantern,” Chaska said, setting her mug on the stone rim and sliding down into the dirt. “Osha, come take the sticks. If I let Bren hold them again, he’ll slant the ring toward the kitchen.”
