The Tangle hips that could bear you a buffalo

Eirlys had the survival skills of an overweight house cat with narcolepsy, so when she turned to face Furi it was with no real sense of urgency. She’d been deep in thought about the giant birds and where she, Hemlock, Reed, Droman, and Ceallach might even go at this point. If only papa was here, he’d know what to do. Eirlys still associated Arturo with a sense of authority, admittedly more so than the Kali woman and even more than Lotte. She’d seen the way äiti looked at him, after all.

Eirlys stopped in her tracks to look the other girl over, but recognition didn’t immediately leap into her pleochroic eyes. Mallaidh’s coloring had still been very, very dark when she’d been kidnapped and separated from the rest of the family. Still, the girl looked so much like a perfect combination of Lotte and Arturo that the snowdrop’s heart began to quicken and her mouth went immediately dry. Mindless of her bleeding face, “What’s your name? What’re your parents’ names?” she asked in the common tongue, entering the situation with all the grace of a three-legged caribou trying to riverdance.