"I still wonder what it was that Timmain thought when she changed. She said that it was for us, for our survival-I even remember the question she asked before she shifted. 'Might it not be better to be wolf?' I still wonder what she meant, but I can't imagine how she intended her son to aid us when he seems out of place with us and with the beasts he follows."

"We just don't know him well enough," Seilein said, joining the small group. "There's reason there; there must be. Even though Timmain's gone, her plan must live on in her son."

"You know it's not easy talking to him," said Valloa, "shy and nervous as he is."

Seilein lowered her eyes and spoke softly. "I'll know him. Somehow."

Valloa humphed, and at that moment a commotion erupted in the farther shelters as Timmorn, snarling and biting at the air, loped into the camp. He paced to and fro, his agitation loud, before coming to a kind of rest by one of the fires. Almost immediately tall figures flowed from tents and weatherbreaks.

"What has he brought?"

"He's late."

"I don't see anything."

"It's been too long. The hunger…" And the voice trailed off into a low, sad song of times gone.

"He's failed. Why do we harbor him?"

"Because he's still our best hope," Seilein snapped, surprised at her own reaction to the stream of complaints. She knew that there was disappointment, keenly felt, and she knew that Timmorn bore the brunt of it. She could not really blame them for that, but she did resent that they had stopped trying to live. "Besides," she went on, "there's something different-not right-here."

At this, a few of the elves made expressions of surprise or curiosity; the others muttered and turned away, saddened or disgusted, back to the shelters. Seilein moved closer to Timmorn and felt a thrill of-something like excitement as she touched his shoulder. "Tell us," she urged.