Swiftcurrent Creek I wanna hold you close

If she was being truthful, Jinx didn't have an answer to her own question. It was wholly open-ended and, such that Aethon could suggest any number of possible solutions. What he ultimately proposed wasn't unlike what Jinx herself would have done. Like the young princeling, she thought it might be sufficient to mark the bones with blood and crude carvings, but there would be poison too. If any fool was desperate enough to steal a bone from the borders, they would find themselves with a belly-ache for a weak, and heaving up twice the pitiful food they had consumed.

But Aethon seemed perplexed about the smaller bones. Jinx gestured for him to follow her to a tree, upon whose trunk she leaned against. "Trees contain a substance called sap," she began, pushing her snout against the bark to relieve a sudden itch. "Sap is sticky. If you can get enough bark off a tree, it will bleed sap, and you can use that sap to stick small bones up on trees. It's more or less permanent, especially when it freezes." She stepped back, hoping Aethon caught on to the usefulness of sap, and awaited any questions he might have.