I didn’t shriek, just made a choked “ungh” sound as I jumped back. When I’d watched Alex try to feed the same kind of animal at the recording session, I hadn’t been close enough to see how ugly the little beasts were. This one was small and flat, like a mouse-size Gila monster, but with a topknot of three antennae, each undulating like weeds in water. The animal didn’t scare me — it wasn’t even repulsive after I’d got over my initial shock — but it definitely wasn’t the sort of thing I’d keep in my pocket.

Jerith saw my reaction, looked down at the brightly colored creature crawling up his clothing, and immediately detached it from his waistband. He winced slightly when he touched it, but held it gently, caressing it. “It’s only my pet,” he said. “It’s very tame.”

“Why did you have it in your pocket?”

“They like warm, dark places. They just curl up and go to sleep. When it heard us popping the Silk, it must have woken up and felt hungry.”

“Hungry?” I said, uneasy with the way Jerith fondled the little beast.

“They eat the Silk,” Jerith answered, holding the animal close to a patch of strands on the wall. The parrot pushed its snout forward; gingerly it tugged loose the end of a thread and sucked up the Silk like spaghetti. “Very delicate mouths,” Jerith added. “They can gobble the stuff without popping it.”

For a while, I watched the tiny animal eat. I wouldn’t say it was cute, but its determined slurping did have an endearing quality. I put out my hand to rub its nose, but Jerith immediately jerked the parrot out of reach.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“They don’t like to be touched by strangers,” he said, backing away from me.