Blacktail Deer Plateau i told you i didn't want to go to this dinner

Meerkat, wai—but Maegi was quick to correct her. That sent a new flurry of emotions through Phox. He was protective of his children.

His children.

Phox tried to digest it a second time, swallowing physically as he attempted to swallow the information he'd been given in rapid succession. Niamh. No more. But he had searched! They had let him search! What horrible lies had she weaved in her last days to make Maegi and Mou so afraid of him? He could not know. He knew that if he did know, it would tarnish the good memories that remained. The memories that had kept him going these past three months.

He looked more closely at the one laying at Mou's feet. He didn't know anymore who belonged to who. Maybe none of them belonged to him. He hadn't even met them until they had agreed to leave the island.

Phox had always been the steady one. The level-headed one.

He found today was no different.

Peregrine and Prevost. Those are the two missing? Where were they last seen? The rest could wait. Everything could wait until they were found. Processing what he'd just learned was a job for future Phox. Perhaps the former's name should have tipped him off, but he'd chalked it up to circumstance. Maybe Niamh had named them before... No, you can't think of that. Focus on the children.