I’m making pancakes.” She disappeared into the kitchen again.
“She hides vegetables in my food and thinks I don’t know,” Uan said softly. “I know.”
I smothered my grin and followed him into the kitchen, where Mom had a large stack of pancakes waiting on his plate.
“I’ll make up some more batter in a minute,” Mom said.
“There’s no need,” Uan said. “Brenna can have some of mine. We must hurry to Tenacity to trade.”
I was barely keeping it together as he placed three of the pancakes on my plate then hesitated before quickly adding a fourth under Mom’s watchful gaze.
“She needs energy,” Uan said lamely. “She is still healing.”
Mom looked at me and shook her head. She knew exactly what he was doing.
“Do whatever it takes to get more meat. We’re out of dog food, and he’s barely eating.”
“Don’t worry. We’ll figure something out,” I said.
Fifteen minutes later, I was licking the maple syrup off my fingers as I walked beside Uan in the pre-dawn light. He and a friend of his, Tor, carried two boxes each of veggies.
“I can’t believe you don’t like syrup,” I said. “It makes the pancakes so much better.”
“Having no vegetables in them makes them better.”
“Have you considered swapping this for whatever meat’s in the supply shed?” I asked.
“The meat is for the humans. We will find more for us.”
Tor nodded in agreement, and I frowned at them.
“That makes no sense. We’re going to Tenacity to trade with humans for meat.”
Uan flashed his pointed teeth at me.
“Yes, but we will be helping them because they will want far more cans of vegetables for their cans of meat. More cans of food mean less growling bellies.”
So this trade wasn’t really about him then. He was finding a way to help the other humans without breaking Mya and Matt’s rules. And Uan already had a girl. I shook my head at myself. I’d been so blind to the fey’s truly helpful nature. Sure, they wanted a woman of their own. They were all pretty open about that. But they honestly wanted to help everyone else, too. Well, most everyone. Their willingness to help the men was tentative so long as it didn’t get in the way of their first objective.
We met Ryan and his group by the wall. Since a number of fey were still on the livestock run, he planned to take a small supply group out into the rural areas to see what they could find. It was safer than trying another run to Harrisonville undermanned.
At Tenacity, we found a few volunteers waiting to join the supply-run group. I waved to them as they left and helped Uan and Tor set up in the supply shed. Not that there was much to set up.
Despite the early hour, we got rid of the vegetables in minutes, people already having caught on to the fact that the fey liked meat. The seven meager cans we’d received in return weren’t much, but the two fey seemed happy.
Uan cracked one open right away and offered me a bite.
“I’m full from breakfast,” I said. “You go ahead.”
Matt came jogging up before Uan finished eating and spoke directly to both fey.
“I’m glad you’re still here. One of the newcomers, a young girl about thirteen, went missing last night. None of the guards saw her leave, which means she has to be here somewhere. With your heightened senses, I was hoping you could help us look.” Matt glanced at me. “Would you be willing to keep an eye on the fey from the top of the wall and yell if there’s any trouble?”
“Sure.”
Matt focused on Uan and Tor again.
“I think the girl’s scared. If you find her, don’t approach. I’m not sure what set her off that she’d want to hide.”
“Maybe the hounds last night,” I said. “Could you hear them from here?”
He nodded grimly.
“Is everyone in Tolerance okay?”
“Yeah, the fey took care of the hounds.”
“Three less to spread the infection,” Uan said.
“Good,” Matt said. “Thank you for killing the hellhounds, and thank you for your help now. We need every person we have.”
I hurriedly climbed the wall and watched Tor leave with Matt while Uan trekked through the neighborhood on his own. Keeping an eye on them wasn’t easy. The place was large, and people were starting to leave their homes and walk around.
I lost Uan when he turned to go down the next street and had to jog along the wall to find him. As I did, a person caught my attention.