Phantom Hollow We're only about twenty miles from Ravenscar here.

Hey Reyes!

Who the fuck — !

The prowling Reyes had been engaged in previously, suddenly came to a halt. He looked around upon hearing the shout and saw a golden shape; his heart lurched, thinking at first it might have been Caracal, having followed him the long way across the valley. That wouldn't make any sense given how he'd left things with the family. How tightly Towhee had been holding on to those little bodies.

His next thought was of Niamh; how fortuitous that he might find his long-lost aunt, who had gone missing as a result of his temper. That couldn't be it either. The stranger drew closer, and they were both too diminutive in size and too happy to see him, so it couldn't have been her.

Oh, but he knew her. Meerkat. How goes... whatever you were doing? Reyes asked, although his disinterest lay in the tone of his voice and fickle shifting of his attention to the woodland around them.

In no time at all Meerkat was drawing up alongside him and Reyes bristled, drawing back from her as if she might harm him. She came from the wrong direction to have been sent by Towhee; hadn't she been sent on some errand? Hunting for something or someone? Oh, there was Niamh again; constant reminders of Reyes' fuck-ups only soured his mood further.