Barrow Fields sky underground

No, he decided, she did not understand him. Not wholly, at least. Part of him almost preferred that, but certainly, it would make convincing her to come quietly more difficult.

He waited until she'd made herself vulnerable. This, too, was a kind of conversation, and Dutch supposed he'd always been chatty. He crawled closer, with not a single thought toward whether or not she was sick, young and thin and alone as she was.

He only wanted to touch her. To breathe in her scent where it was still warm from her skin, and recapture a piece of something that had been stolen from him. To tuck her against him, or under his chin, to feel her like a silent shadow at his side or at his back. To see her eyes lamplike in the night when he woke from a strange dream.

He crawled closer, closer, watching her carefully for signs she might spring away.

His tail began to sweep the snow behind him, though not with the same vigor that had once propelled it. She smelled all wrong, but somehow, almost right.