The pups are off again. It is the same song on and on again, a relentless grating against Lapblood's ears. Another day, another time, she might have managed it.

"They're off again!"

But not today. They're off-key and they're killers and they're singing like everything is fine. Like her pups aren't whimpering in that same off-key pitch.

"It'd be one thing if they managed to stay on pitch, but that's just painful," says Mange. There's an edge to his voice beyond just annoyance. He's thinking the same thing. Of course he is. Not a wakeful moment goes by without remembering those moans, all that blood over the floor.

"It's no worse than listening to you guys gnaw on that stuff," the warrior says, and Lapblood has to prick her tongue with a tooth not to go snarl something that ordinarily would be quite unfitting for a quest at him, though, of course, with Hamnet running the show, there was no saying what would be jeopardizing and what wouldn't be.

"There must be some way to muzzle them," she says instead. No nice way of saying it, but what does he expect? That she and Mange will be oh so nice and go sing along with a pair of killer pups? The boy must be able to take a hint. He should know when he's lost.

But he doesn't. He's decided to be stubborn, it seems. "None I can think of."

"Well, I'll think of one if they keep on like this!" says Mange, his voice rising. Lapblood jabs him with her tail. His muscles are tense.

Now is a good time to stop. That boy's mother has the plague. He knows better than to rile them up.

The warrior's eyes flash. "You rats… you've got a problem with little kids, don't you?"

He ought to know better. Or he would not have spearheaded that deal that saved the quest. He would not have gone against Solovet and the killer council about the yellow powder. His mother has the plague; he can afford no setbacks.

Or, this is what Lapblood thought.

"Bet you don't even like your own pups."

Her claws dig into the vines of the jungle floor, regardless of Hamnet's warnings. Muscles tensing, heart pounding. Momentarily, the world goes dark. By her side, she hears Mange's breathing quicken, the low hum that signals a growl building in his throat.

My pups. My pups! she calls in her mind, her voice so sharp and shrill that she, for a moment, believes it to be actual speech. A dull aching feeling erupts from her gut and spreads like cold water through her body. She sees her pups, crying as they lie writhing with fever on the floor of an empty cavern. The deep red blood coalescing around their bodies before turning thick and murky. Tongues white and dry, unable to eat what little they could drag themselves across the floor to. The smell of decay and sickness. Sixclaw and Flyfur, watching their siblings from a far end. They're crying, Mama, they're crying, I wanna be with them, why can't we, why are they sick, will we die, too?

Had she been allowed to, had the fate of all gnawers, all parents, all pups, her pups, not been at stake, she would have killed the boy. She would have torn the head from his neck and crushed it in her jaws before dragging his body into the jungle and tearing him limb from limb. The streams would have run red, so damn whatever creatures may lurk and pounce.