“Do ponies talk to each other?” Merri Lee asked.
Meg turned away from the flowers that had caught her attention and smiled. All the ponies except Mist were at the junction where the Courtyard’s main road met the road leading to the Pony Barn. Even Whirlpool, the newest pony, was there, although he still hadn’t quite achieved the “I’m a harmless, chubby pony” form.
Meg waved at them. “We have carrots for the treat today.”
“Is that significant?” Ruth asked when they were far enough down the road not to be overheard.
“Everyone comes for the treat on Moonsday because it’s sugar lumps,” Meg said. “But not everyone will show up for carrots.”
“Makes sense,” Merri Lee said.
“So does that,” Ruth said quietly.
A Wolf with a dark coat shot with lighter gray hairs raced toward them—big, fast, lethal. And happy. Maybe that meant the meeting had gone well? More likely, Simon was happy to be outdoors and furry, even if it was only for a few minutes.
“I didn’t bring the rope, and I’m not going to run and get all sweaty before starting work, so don’t even think about playing herd the human,” Meg said.
He laughed at her—she could tell he was laughing—and eyed the woven hat Merri Lee had brought for her to wear so her head wouldn’t get sunburned.
Meg clamped a hand on the hat, which seemed to amuse him.
Wolves could make a game out of almost anything, and playing snatch the hat could go on for weeks before they became sufficiently bored to look for something else.
Having achieved whatever he came to do, Simon turned and loped in the direction of the Market Square.
He would have stayed if she’d been walking alone.
“You could call him back, walk on ahead of us,” Merri Lee said.
Meg shook her head. “We’re doing an experiment.”
But she wished she could have run a hand through his fur, just for that moment of connection. Just to say I am here.
* * *
Simon pulled on the clothes he’d left at HGR: jeans, canvas shoes, and a dark green polo shirt. Not the kind of outfit he used to wear during bookstore work hours, but he didn’t have to worry about making the correct impression on human customers anymore. Besides, now that it was warmer, these were the same kinds of clothes Kowalski, Debany, and MacDonald wore when they weren’t on duty. For the terra indigene who kept watch on the humans, blending in on a city street was just as important as moving unseen in the wild country.
Meg looked fine. He’d caught the scent of fear when he’d caught up with the girls, but it hadn’t come from her. Someone else in the gaggle had feared the Wolf because he looked like a Wolf.
He grinned. Gaggle of girls. Female pack had a sound of teeth and power. But gaggle? Easier to deal with a gaggle as long as he remembered a gaggle could change into a pack pretty damn fast.
As he reached the archway between HGR and A Little Bite, he noticed the lattice door was still closed. When he tried to open it, he discovered it was locked.
<Tess?>
<Fucking monkeys. Wither their eyes. Squeeze their hearts into black pulp. Turn them into festering cesspools contained in a weeping bag of skin.>
Simon stepped away from the lattice door. The voice sounded like Tess, but not the Tess he knew.
Plague Rider.
Harvesters were a rare form of terra indigene, loners who could kill with a look when their true nature was revealed. He’d invited Tess to live in the Lakeside Courtyard when he’d taken over as the leader. He’d known she was a dangerous predator, but he hadn’t known what she was until recently. And he’d never felt that he’d put the rest of the terra indigene in Lakeside at risk by letting her live here—until now.