I stared at the beast for a second. Mind? Wait, is it low on mana? I only had a few kain fruit left, three really. That’d be a drop in a bucket. Regardless, I reached into my chest pouch. “So, I don’t know if this will help. I’m pretty sure ferrets only eat meat and this isn’t nearly enough for something your size.”

  The creature lifted its head as I approached, weary curiosity in its eyes. When I held out the three berries in the palm of my hand, it sniffed at them for a brief moment before gingerly opening its mouth. Taking that as a signal, I tossed the fruit in.

  It briefly chewed before shivering a heartbeat later and then laid back down.

  After it finished settling, I patted its head. “Not good then?”

  GOOD. NOT. ENOUGH. The creature yawned deeply. AM. TIRED. BUT. Its eyes focused on me. HAVE. NEW. FRIEND. IS. ENOUGH. FOR. NOW.

  I nodded and scratched behind its ears before returning to my pack. “I’m going to make myself some food. By the way, my name is Samuel. My friends call me Sam.”

  The skyferret’s eyes twinkled. SAM? HUMAN. NAMES. FUNNY. MASTER. NAMED. ME. KIKI.

  “Kiki?” I echoed with more than a little disbelief.

  The noise that rumbled out of the skyferret wasn’t quite a growl. If anything, it sounded a bit put off.

  I glanced over. “Nothing’s wrong with your name, Kiki. It’s just not one I expected for a ferret your size.”

  WAS. MUCH. SMALLER.

  “Like I said, nothing wrong with it. If I think of you as a normal sized ferret, I could totally see naming you Kiki,” I noted and frowned. I had a week’s worth of MRE’s left and a dump pouch full of river mussels that wouldn’t last another day. Fresh seafood, it is. I frowned as I emptied my dump pouch on the wood roof. How the hell do you cook mussels? Or can you eat them raw? Is that even a good idea? Fuck my life.

  I sighed, poked at a partially open one, and when it snapped shut, several things popped into my head. Yes, you can eat them raw, but they’re filter feeders so your mileage may vary wildly, depending on how clean the water was. They’re generally prepared by steaming, too. The third thought had me pulling out my boot knife, as mussel shells generally don’t have a faint glow inside them.

  Believe it or not, prying open the little sonofabitch wasn’t as easy as most would think, doubly so because it closed when I picked it up. Now, I’m sure there are folks who already understand that just getting the tip in wasn’t easy. First time problems, right? I did, however, eventually get it in without hurting myself and plundered the moist treasure within. Treasures, actually.

  A little coaxing later, three tiny pearlescent nodules ended up in my hand. Their faint blue glow made me hesitant to call them pearls. Two of them were about the size of BBs, almost perfectly round, and nearly black with an iridescent sheen and faint golden sparkles embedded just under the surface. The third had mostly the same color scheme, but its glow was more red than the others’ blue and it was more of a lump like two of the smaller ones had fused together.

  Kiki’s head came up while I was studying them and sniffed the air. SAM.

  “Yes, Kiki?” I asked and glanced over.

  SOMETHING. SMELLS. GOOD.

  I eyed what I was thinking about calling mana pearls, assuming that’s what they were, and held up one of the small ones. “I don’t think these are edible, Kiki. I was going to eat the meat; there’s probably not enough for me.”

  KEEP. MEAT. The skyferret unwound and shuffled closer, its eyes fixed on the pearls in my hand. It settled down just inside arms reach and gave me the most soulful eyes. CAN. HAS. ONE? PLEASE?

  At that point, I couldn’t say no. Not to that level of emotional blackmail, anyway. I plucked one out of my palm and held it out.

  Kiki sniffed at it, stuck her tongue out, and the pearl vanished into the skyferret’s mouth the instant I let go.

  “Are you sure that’s safe for you to eat?” I asked.

  SAFE. The skyferret slow blinked and sank to the floor before closing its eyes. NAP. NOW.

  I eyed Kiki for a few long moments. Okay then. I went back to checking the mussels for more pearls and contriving the world’s most ghetto steamer using only my thermos, an MRE heater, and some water from my canteen. In the end, the meal was just on this side of disgusting, but at least it was filling. I contented myself with the fact that most of the mussels had at least one pearl so I ended up with over a dozen of them.

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  ***

  WAKE UP, SAM.

  I clenched my eyes and rolled over.

  SAM, WAKE UP.

  Groggy as hell, I reluctantly opened my eyes to find Kiki’s face inches from mine, bobbing happily. “What is it, Kiki?”

  IT’S DAYLIGHT. HUMANS ARE USUALLY AWAKE DURING DAYLIGHT.

  “Fair,” I muttered and reached for my canteen. I was halfway through a gulp when a realization hit my foggy brain, and I glanced at the skyferret. Kiki’s eyes were brighter and far more intelligent than they were the day before. “You’re speaking in complete sentences now?”

  YES. I AM MORE ME NOW. THANK YOU.

  “Oh. Well, you’re welcome? I guess that mana pearl really helped.”

  IT DID. I LOOKED FOR TOMAS WHILE YOU SLEPT, BUT THE FOG MAKES EVERYTHING HARDER. SORRY.

  A quick look over the wall showed that the fog had, in fact, returned. From up here it looked about waist deep and not terribly thick.

  “You called the things in the river meanies yesterday. You’ve had problems with them?” I asked, pulling out the message book.

  Kiki’s head tilted enough I got the impression she was thinking. Is it a she? THEY SPLASH ME WHEN I GET WATER.

  My forehead furrowed on its own. “They splash you?”

  I SPEND A LOT OF TIME CLEANING MYSELF. IT IS VERY INCONVENIENT.

  “So they don’t attack you?”

  NO? IF THEY HAD, IT WAS NOT EFFECTIVE. I AM MUCH LARGER THAN THEM.

  “And the people who were on the horses?”

  THEY ATTACKED. I MADE THEM STOP.

  “Just so you know, I saw you take out a patrol on the other side of the city a few days ago. They didn’t attack you.

  Kiki looked away. THE FIRST RIDERS ATTACKED ME. SO DID THE SECOND GROUP. AND THE NEXT THREE TOO.

  “So, what I’m hearing is, past a certain point you just assumed they’re going to attack you?”

  YES. I NEEDED FOOD. HORSES ARE TASTY AND FUN TO CHASE.

  “But you don’t eat people?”

  Kiki shuddered. NO. MASTER WAS PEOPLE. PEOPLE SHOULD BE FRIENDS. NOT FOOD.

  Nodding, I pulled out my pen. “Can’t really argue there.”

  WHAT’S THAT?

  “Oh, it’s a message book. There’s another one paired with it. When you write in it, the words appear in the other one.”

  Kiki squinted. WHY?

  “So I can talk to my friends back home no matter where I go.”

  The skyferret’s eyes shot open. MORE FRIENDS?!

  Opening the book, I chuckled at Kiki’s apparent surprise. “Yeah, lots of them. They’re probably worried about me by now. I was supposed to write them last night but I fell asleep.”

  A quick glance at the last page confirmed my suspicions, Jenna had written a few sentences, all of them asking if I was okay.

  CAN I MEET THEM?

  “When I’ve finished my mission, sure. I’m pretty sure Fiachra would lose his shit if he couldn’t meet you. He’s a nerd—ah, a mage.”

  WHAT’S A NERD?

  I bit back a quiet snicker. “They’re people spend their entire life focused on learning. Quite a few of them are insufferable because they think that makes them superior.”

  BUT LEARNING IS IMPORTANT.

  “It is. Trust me, you’ll understand what a nerd is when you meet one. Give me a minute, I have to let my sister know I’m safe.”

  Sorry, sis. Shit went off the rails and I crashed out once I was safe. There’s no good way to say it, but Tomas is gone. We were crossing the Fuilteach at a shallow point. One second he was behind me and the next he wasn’t. No sound, no ripples in the water, nothing. Got attacked by something that looked like a mermaid a few seconds later, so I’m guessing that’s what took him. The ultrasonic sent it running though. I searched the area but haven’t found shit. Also, I’m sitting here on top of a watch tower on the Longreach side of the river from Annesport about to have a snack with the skyferret I told you about a few days ago. Yes. With the skyferret. Kiki is evidently pretty friendly if you don’t try to kill her first. Or at least I think it’s a her anyway. Either way, once breakfast is over, I’m going to see if Kiki can’t give me a lift to Longreach. Been kicking myself since Tomas disappeared, but now that the fog’s come back in, the odds of me finding him, assuming Tomas is even alive, are basically zero. I don’t really have a choice but to keep moving. Sucks, but it is what it is. I’ll try to update in a few hours. Barring that, I’ll write before nightfall.

  After taking a moment to stretch, the message book went back into its pouch. “Kiki, you’ve lived in this area for a while, yes?”

  MANY WINTERS, YES.

  “Tomas and I came up here because we’re looking for people,” I began and then realized the skyferret might not understand what slavery was.

  THERE ARE NO PEOPLE IN THE FOG.

  I nodded. “I wouldn’t expect there to be. Now, we were told there were people on the other side of the fog, in Longreach.”

  YOU MUST NOT GO TO LONGREACH.

  Telepathy or not, Kiki’s insistence bled through almost as a compulsion that left a vaguely copper-like taste on my tongue. “Okay? Why?”

  THEY KILLED MASTER. THEY TRIED TO KILL ME.

  “But there are people there?”

  MANY WINTERS AGO, YES.

  Now we’re getting somewhere. “How many were there? How long ago?”

  Kiki’s face scrunched up. I CANNOT REMEMBER HOW LONG IT HAS BEEN. THERE WERE HUNDREDS.

  “Longreach used to have a population over ten thousand.”

  MAYBE ONCE. NOT ANYMORE.

  While I mulled over the possibilities with that answer, I sipped from Wyk’s flask and then topped it off with water from the Jesus jug. “Can you take me there?”

  NO. THEY WILL KILL YOU. OR WORSE.

  I knew not to ask what qualified as worse. There are, in fact, things worse than death, and after a few trips through Africa and the Middle East, I’d seen a few myself. “Could you at least take me closer?”

  WHY DO YOU INSIST? The skyferret’s fur bristled as irritation flickered across its face, and just as suddenly, its expression deflated and it looked away. I DO NOT WANT TO LOSE MY FRIEND. I WAITED SO LONG FOR A FRIEND.

  I reached out and scratched behind her ears. “Kiki, are there any more skyferrets like you?”

  Kiki somehow managed to wilt even further. NO.

  “So, you understand what it’s like to be alone. If you came from Longreach, you know who the Syr are. You know something bad happened to create this fog, yes?”

  YES. BACK WHEN I WAS SMALL.

  “Now, Kiki, when that happened, it killed a lot of Syr. More than either of us can count, and now there aren’t that many left. If things don’t change, they’ll be alone, just like you have been. I’m trying to stop that from happening.”

  LONELY IS BAD. BUT. BUT I COULD BE THEIR FRIEND!

  I couldn’t help but smile. “Yes, Kiki, you could. In fact, I bet they’d love that, but they also need me to bring back other Syr so they can be friends, too.”

  THERE ARE NO FRIENDS IN LONGREACH. ONLY BAD PEOPLE.