Darion vaulted over the edges of the cart and stalked toward the shot man. Snow lunged forward and caught his shoulder as he walked past. It jerked him around to face her, and the words Snow had been intending to say died in her throat.

For a moment they stood there, nose to nose and eyes to eyes. Abruptly Darion stepped back and slipped out from under the hand Snow was holding him with.

"What. Do you have something to say?" His voice had finally regained its original sound, but his face looked utterly flat and emotionless. It was not an improvement.

Snow said slowly, cautiously, "Surely, you only need to kill one."

Darion tilted his head and replied, just as slowly, "you don't mind I killed him?" He gestured back toward the cart with the still bloody knife he was holding.

Snow paused. She did mind. But . . . "I am, reserving judgement." She said finally, "Until I have more information. I don't suppose you could provide some?"

Darion glanced over to where the injured man was lying on the road, and then back to her. "It is so much easier to get the dubharach and the humans to fight each other, than it is to defend against both."

Snow blinked, as it clicked into place. All the showy magic and mannerism wasn't Darion, it was an act, an act to cause conflict between the humans and the dubharach.

"You can't let him go." Snow realized. "To get the humans truly enraged, you have to be ruthless, and cruel, and –" Snow paused as the impact of what she was saying hit her, "In-human."

Darion nodded quietly, then with a very soft expression, said, "That doesn't sound familiar at all."

Snow blinked as she made the connection. Did Darion think she wasn't – human? As soon as she had the thought, she was angry. She wasn't human, but she was trying to be! That's what all the magic and the fuss had been about with her dear stepmother. She was about to make an angry retort, when Darion continued.

"Perhaps you would like to do the honors? I imagine it has been some time . . ." He gestured once more toward the man lying on the ground, slowly bleeding out.

Snow stopped. As much as she was still angry, as much as she wanted to refuse and stomp back into the forest by herself, she couldn't. Because he was right. She needed blood, and this was a solution that would not impose upon the hosts who willingly took her in.

She stalked angrily past him and dropped to her knees beside the dying man. The scent of his blood was much stronger here, but for a moment she looked into his eyes. It was a mistake. He looked afraid.

Snow was still angry. She was afraid of what she had seen Darion do. She was cold, and lonely, and nothing made sense anymore. And she felt so guilty. But she was so, so thirsty. She leaned over this man, dying in the middle of the road by sheer bad luck, and did not stop until there was not a single drop of blood left in his veins.

As she followed Darion back into the trees, the voice that anger had drowned out earlier resurfaced, whispering, "You aren't human. If anyone else needed to drink another's blood, they would be horrified. But you aren't. And you never really gave your stepmother your most earnest efforts, did you? How much do you really want to be human?"

Snow had no answer for herself.