Starglow Basin By streetlight, this dark night, a séance down below

She dropped the skull. Talis stared at it for a beat, particularly its long, yellowed fangs. It belonged to a canine of some sort. Had she scavenged it, perhaps in the basin she’d just left? No explanation was forthcoming.

I, ah, Talis answered, eyes cutting from her macabre souvenir to her face, I thought on it some more and I decided I might be interested in joining The Tribe after all. But I feel like I should be candid about something, he continued, taking a breath, something I just discovered about myself, actually…

But before he got into that, he couldn’t stop looking at the skull. Its empty eye sockets seemed to look right back at him. The coyote’s pale hackles prickled warily.

Where’d you get it? And what’re you planning on doing with it? he couldn’t help but wonder aloud.