Laika Belle had been staring at the same footprint in the moss for an hour, trying to work up the courage to follow it out of the grove. The print was cloven, larger than a deer's, and pressed deep as if the walker had paused to look back at her hut. Laika crouched over it with her white hair falling into her eyes. Twenty-two years in this grove, and she had decided this morning she was going to find someone to love. She had also decided, less bravely, that she would do it without leaving the trees. The trouble was that no tiefling suitor had ever wandered past her creek. No one had wandered past her creek at all. Her mother, before she died, had chosen this grove for its quiet, and Laika had inherited the quiet like a heavy coat she could not take off. Every morning she practiced hello in the mirror. Every evening she unpracticed it by talking to no one. A branch cracked. Laika bolted for the hut and pressed her back to the door. "You can come out," a voice called. "I saw the smoke from your chimney a mile off." The speaker stepped into the clearing on two hooved legs. She was shorter than Laika, brown-furred, with a canine snout and two clean fangs showing when she spoke. A pale antler rack rose above sharp brown eyes. A green cloak hung off one shoulder, and a belt of small pouches clinked at her hip. Behind her walked a tall four-legged animal, a deer's body under a dog's watchful face, antlers wide, ears pricked toward Laika. "Felicette," the stranger said. "I'm a courier. You're not on my map." Laika opened her mouth. Nothing came out. She pointed at the footprint in the moss. "That's his," Felicette said, nodding at the staghound. "He wanted to know who lived here. He's nosy." She studied Laika's horns, her tail, her bare feet. "You've been in this grove a while." "All my life," Laika said. Her voice sounded rusted. "There's a market three days east. Tieflings trade there. Musicians, mostly. A few looking for company." Felicette tilted her head. "I'm going that way tomorrow. I don't usually take passengers. The staghound decides." The staghound walked to Laika and pushed his warm nose against her palm. "He's decided," Felicette said. "Pack light. I leave at dawn, whether you're at the creek or not." She turned and walked back into the trees. The staghound stayed a moment longer, watching Laika with steady dog-eyes above his deer's chest, then followed. Laika stood in the doorway. Her hand was still warm where the animal had touched it. She went inside, pulled her mother's satchel from the hook, and began putting things into it: a knife, a comb, three apples. Her hands shook. She kept packing. Dawn was only a night away, and for the first time she knew where to go.

They rode three days east. Laika sat behind Felicette on the staghound's broad back and said almost nothing. She practiced sentences in her head instead. Hello. My name is Laika. I came from the west. Every version sounded wrong before it left her mouth. Felicette hummed and pointed out streams and rested the staghound at noon. On the third afternoon, the trees thinned and Laika heard the market before she saw it: bells, hoofbeats, a fiddle, voices layered like laundry on a line. Felicette slid down and tied the staghound to a post. "Stalls run till dusk," she said. "I have parcels to drop. Find me at the red awning when the lamps come on." She looked at Laika a moment longer. "Don't stand at the edge. People think edge-standers are thieves." Laika stepped into the aisle. Tieflings everywhere. Horned, tailed, some with skin the color of plums, some pale as her. A man with a lute laughed at something a woman said. A boy juggled apples. Laika smelled roasting nuts and hot iron. She had rehearsed a hello but her tongue had gone flat. She walked with her hands tight on the satchel strap and her eyes down, and people moved around her the way water moves around a stone. She stopped at a stall that sold small carved animals. The seller was a tiefling about her age, black horns curling back, a scar on his lip. He looked up and smiled. "See anything you like?" Laika opened her mouth. "I," she said. Her voice cracked. She tried again. "I have never." She could not finish it. Her tail lashed once behind her, hard, and knocked a carved fox off the table. It clattered on the stones. The seller's smile thinned. He bent to pick up the fox. Laika bent too. Their hands almost touched and she jerked back and stepped on a woman's foot behind her. The woman swore. Laika turned to apologize and her horn caught the edge of a hanging scarf and pulled the whole line down. She ran. She ran until the noise of the market was behind her and she was pressed against a fence at the edge of the stalls, breathing like she'd been held underwater. Her face was hot. Her hands shook worse than they had at dawn three days ago. Felicette found her there when the lamps came on. She did not ask what happened. She looked at Laika's wet eyes and the torn strap on the satchel and sighed through her fangs. "You can't do it cold," she said. "I know a place. Half a day north. It's falling down and it's full of animals that need hands. You learn to talk to a thing by feeding it first." She untied the staghound. "Come on. The market will still be here next week." Laika climbed up behind her and did not look back.

They rode north half a day. The staghound picked its way through brush that hadn't been cut in years. Laika kept her hands on the saddle and said nothing. Felicette hummed the same three notes over and over. When the trees opened, Laika saw a stone house with a sagging roof and ivy in the windows. A painted sign hung crooked over the door. Wildrest Haven, it read. A lantern glowed above the arch, though it was still afternoon. "Sanctuary," Felicette said. She swung down and unlatched the gate. "Used to be run proper. Now it's mostly me when I pass through. Animals still come." She looked back at Laika. "You'll feed them. That's the whole job. No talking required. Watch what they do and answer with your hands." Laika slid off the staghound. Her knees shook. Felicette pushed open the door and the smell hit first — hay, warm fur, something sweeter underneath. Stalls lined the back wall. In the nearest one, a small dragon curled on a blanket. Its fur shifted colors like a night sky. It lifted its head and stared at Laika with red eyes. "That one won't eat for strangers," Felicette said. "Been three days. Try her." Laika froze. "I don't know how." Felicette pulled a wooden crate down from a shelf. Brushes, cloths, a scoop, small jars. She pressed the scoop into Laika's hand and pointed to a bin of dried berries. "Fill it. Sit outside the stall. Don't look at her. Don't reach. Just wait." Laika filled the scoop. She sat on the straw with her back against the stall post and set the scoop on the ground beside her. She looked at the wall. Her tail wanted to lash. She pinned it under her leg. Minutes passed. She heard the dragon shift. Claws on wood. A slow sniff. Laika kept her eyes on a knot in the plank across from her and counted to a hundred. She counted again. Her shoulders came down a finger's width. Something warm touched her wrist. A snout. The dragon ate from the scoop while Laika held still. Not one berry fell. When the scoop was empty, the dragon pushed its head under Laika's palm and stayed there. Laika breathed out. She had not said a word. The animal had not needed one. Her hand knew what to do without asking her mouth. Felicette watched from the doorway. She did not smile, but her ears turned forward. "Good," she said. "Tomorrow you do the chimera. He kicks." Laika laughed. The sound surprised her. It came out rough, but it came out. She stayed with the dragon until dusk. She would learn the animals first. When she went back to people, she would already know how to listen with her hands.

By the second week, Laika could name every animal in the sanctuary by the sound of its breathing. She fed the dragon at dawn. She brushed the chimera at noon. Her hands had grown steady. Her mouth had not. When Felicette spoke to her across the yard, Laika still answered in half words or nods. The animals asked nothing of her tongue. She had begun to prefer it that way. On the tenth morning, a stranger came through the gate. A tiefling, tall, with a red cloak muddy at the hem and a limp in his left leg. He carried a wire cage. Inside, a young starry dragon lay on its side, one wing bent wrong. Laika stood in the doorway with the feed scoop in her hand and watched him. "Heard you take hurt things," he said. He set the cage down at her feet. He looked up at her, and his eyes were the same blue as hers. He smiled. It was a tired, kind smile. "Can you help her?" Laika knelt by the cage. The little dragon's fur shifted purple to black under her hand. She unlatched the door and lifted the animal out. The wing was clean-broken. She could splint it. Her fingers already knew. The man crouched beside her. "I walked two days," he said. "Someone at the market told me about this place. About the girl who feeds the ones that won't eat." He waited. "That's you?" Laika nodded. She kept her eyes on the wing. She felt his shoulder near hers, warm through the cloak. He smelled like rain and leather. He was waiting for her to say something. Anything. Her name would have been enough. Her throat closed. She reached for the splint kit instead. She worked. The man watched her hands for a long minute. Then he stood. "I'll come back for her in a week," he said. His voice had gone flat. "If that's alright." Laika nodded again. She did not look up. She heard his boots cross the yard. She heard the gate. Felicette came out of the barn and stood beside her. She watched the road where the red cloak was already small. "He came a long way," Felicette said. "For a dragon he could have left in a ditch." Laika looked at her. "He was only bringing the animal." Felicette's ears turned back. "He asked your name three ways. You didn't hear any of them." She picked up the empty cage. "Animals show you what they want. People hide it inside words. You have to learn the words, Laika. Or you'll keep missing them." Laika sat with the splinted dragon in her lap. The gate stayed shut. Her hands, so sure a moment ago, felt useless now. She had learned to listen without speaking. It was not enough.

The splinted dragon slept in a basket by Laika's cot. Three days had passed since the blue-eyed man walked out the gate. Four days remained until he came back. Laika sat up in the dark and counted them again. He would collect the dragon. He would say goodbye at the fence. He would go, and she would still not have said her name. At dawn she found Felicette in the yard, brushing down the staghound. Felicette was small under those wide antlers, her green scarf knotted at her throat, her canine teeth showing when she worked a knot from the animal's coat. She did not look up. "I need to find him," Laika said. The brush stopped. Felicette's ears swung forward. It was the longest sentence Laika had spoken to her in a week. "The tiefling." Laika's hands twisted in her sleeves. "Before he comes back. I want to speak first. Where he can't just walk away again." Felicette set the brush on the top of the stable supply crate. She studied Laika's face for a long moment. "You don't know his name. You don't know his road." "He said the market. Someone at the market told him about this place." "That's three days east. And he had a limp. He won't be moving fast." Felicette's tail flicked once. "You want to ride out and hope you cross him." "Yes." "And if you miss him on the road? He arrives here. You are gone. He waits an hour and leaves for good." Laika had not thought of that. Her stomach dropped. She looked at the stone walls of the sanctuary, the ivy, the crooked lanterns still lit from the night. She looked at the road. "Then I stay," she said. Felicette waited. "I stay, and when he comes, I speak." Laika's voice shook. "First. Before he can hand me the cage and go." Felicette picked the brush back up. "Good. Practice on me till then." "Practice what?" "Your name. His questions. Any answer you please. Out loud, every morning, until the gate opens." She turned back to the staghound's flank. "You don't chase a man three days east because you couldn't say hello. You get ready for the door he already told you he'd walk through." Laika stood in the yard a long time. The little starry dragon called from the basket inside, thin and hungry. Laika went to feed her. Her hands were steady on the scoop. Her mouth moved as she worked, shaping the word she would say first. Her name. Then his question, whichever one he chose. Four days. She had four days to learn how to open her mouth before he opened his.