accept, old friend," Dolanna said with a gentle smile, taking his hand.  "And tell me, has Renoit left for his spring performances?"
	"Renoit?  He's still performing in the Circus Square, so I guess he hasn't left yet," he replied.  "Did you want to see his troupe?  I have to admit, they are astounding.  More than worth an afternoon."
	"Perhaps we will at that," she said.  "If you do not mind, we really must settle in.  It has been a long journey."
	"Of course, of course!  Dareen, escort our guests here to the Grande Suites," he ordered one of the pretty young ladies standing behind him.  "They are to be treated like the old friends they are."
	"Yes, Master Haley.  If you would follow me please," she told them.
	"I don't like him," Keritanima said waspishly as they went up the stairs.
	"You just don't like someone that's more royal than you," Dar jibed.
	"He's much more of a princess than me," she shot back.
	The suite was huge.  It was a large central sitting room with six assorted bedrooms leading away from it.  It took up the entire top floor of the inn.  Each of the six rooms were large, but some were obviously meant for wealthy guests, and some were meant for their servants.  Each was well decorated, but the lavishness of the larger bedrooms was apparent to any who cared to look.  Tarrin remained in cat form as Dareen showed them the suite, then promised to have a very large meal brought up for them.  Only after she left did he wriggle out of Miranda's shoulder satchel and shift back to his humanoid form.
	"This room is mine!" Keritanima shouted from one of them, probably the largest and most luxurious of them all.
	"Six rooms, ten of us.  Some of us are going to have to double up," Faalken said.
	"I hope your snoring isn't as bad on land, Faalken," Azakar said.
	"I'll do my best to make it worse," he teased.
	"I really need to take a bath," Dar said, tugging at his robes.
	"Haley has a large bathing room in the basement," Dolanna told him.  "Or he will have a bathtub brought up to us, as we please."
	There was a knock at the door, which sent Tarrin back into cat form immediately.  Dar opened it, and found a young, slim, pretty girl in a black dress, with an apron.  Her blond hair was tied back in a tail, and it dangled all the way to her thighs.  The dress ended above her knees.  "Andevous, madamme.  Abuyi Lisette.  Jui sun cec chate deaux?"
	"Do you speak the common tongue, young one?" Dolanna asked.
	"Oui, madame," she said in a heavy accent.  "Do you require anything?"
	"I think I need a cold bath," Faalken said, looking at the young girl.  That got him an elbow in the ribs from Keritanima.  She winced when her elbow made connection with the steel of his armor.
	"Just a meal for now, my dear," Dolanna told her.  "I will call you if we require anything more."
	"Oui," she said, giving a bobbing curtsy.  "I will hurry the meal."
	"Be still my breastplate," Faalken said, watching the door for a moment after she closed it.
	"I think it's your codpiece you should keep still," Keritanima said waspishly.
	"I love Shacan maids," Faalken said with hearty sigh and a look at the door.
	"You love anything in a dress.  That's one reason I'm so worried about wearing the robes," Azakar told him, which made the Knight glare at him.
	"I think I broke my arm,"  Keritanima said sulkily, rubbing her elbow.
	"That'll teach you to elbow a Knight."
	"I'll just set fire to your breeches next time," she told him with a slightly ominous smile.
	"I think the maid already did that," Faalken said, which made Allia and Dar break out in laughter and drew a nasty look from Keritanima.
	"Children," Dolanna chided.  "We should settle in.  We will probably be here for a few days."
	"I don't see how someone so old can be a child," Keritanima said in a surly tone as Faalken and Azakar entered one of the rooms.
	"Faalken's temperament passes a great deal of idle time, Keritanima," Dolanna told her in a calm voice, though she was smiling.  "Given the choice of spending a month with him, or a month with you, I would choose him.  He is much more entertaining."
	"That was low, Dolanna," Keritanima said shortly.
	"At least he does not shed," she said, passing into one of the rooms.
	Miranda burst out laughing, but it came up short when Keritanima whirled on her and gave her an ugly look.  "Don't you start too!" she snapped.
	"Kerri, I never stopped," she said with a cheeky grin.  "And you do shed."
	Keritanima growled in her throat, then stomped into one of the rooms.  She made sure to slam the door.  Hard.
	Miranda giggled like a little girl, then looked down and gave Tarrin a cheeky grin.  Then she winked. "You two better claim rooms," Miranda told Allia and Dar.
	"What about you?" Dar asked.
	"My place is with her Royal Shedding Highness," she said simply.  "Binter and Sisska will get a room too.  They may be Kerri's bodyguards, but even they need time to themselves sometimes.  I'll keep an eye on her Highness."
	"We appreciate your consideration, Miranda," Sisska said in her deep, unfeminine voice.
	Tarrin jumped up onto the deeply cushioned couch, upholstered in dark satin, then laid down sedately near the arm.  "I think Tarrin is claiming this room as his own," Allia said with a smile at him.  Tarrin nodded to her.  "Alright then.  I think I would like to unpack this," she said, holding up her pack.
	All the others went into rooms, leaving Tarrin alone.  He didn't mind all that much, for he was rather tired, and it had been a long day.  The couch was soft and pleasant, and it would make a perfect bed for him.  Azakar was carrying his pack, so he knew where to go to get his things.  He had just drifted off to to sleep when the door opened, and two large men carried in a table.  More men behind them brought in chairs, and then a series of ladies lavished large amounts of sumptuous-smelling food onto the table.  Haley himself stood at the door watching the activity, and his smile returned when Dolanna came out of her room.  "As promised, one meal to die for," Haley told her, kissing her hand as the last servant filed out.  "After you dine, I'll have bathtubs brought up so you can wash the sea off of your skin."
	"That would greatly please me, Master Haley," she said sincerely.
	"You never told me you had a pet, Dolanna," he said, looking at Tarrin.  "I didn't see it when you arrived."
	"Mistress Allison was carrying him in her bag," she said calmly.  "The cat likes it in there, and it makes it easy to transport."
	"He's a big cat," he said with a smile, approaching Tarrin, as if to pet him.  But the closer he got, the more striking the dissimilarity of his scent became.  It was blazingly obvious to him that Haley wasn't human, wasn't what he appeared to be.  Didn't Dolanna know that?  Was he an enemy, a lurker, someone who preyed on the unwary?  Tarrin laid his ears back when Haley got near, and then hissed at him when he reached out to pat him on the head.  A clawed paw took a swipe at that hand, which was out of range, but it got his attention.  Haley backed off, slowly, giving Dolanna a rueful grin.
	"I am so sorry, Haley," she apologized as Tarrin growled at the man threateningly. "I have never seen him do that before."
	"Maybe your cat can smell me," he chuckled ruefully.  "I know I don't smell like a human."
	That got his attention.  That he referred to them as human meant that he wasn't one himself.
	"Tarrin's sense of smell is quite acute," Dolanna agreed.  "Now that I think about it, it makes perfect sense."
	"Tarrin?" Haley said with sudden interest, giving Dolanna a sharp look.  "You mean this is the Tarrin?"
	"How do you mean?"
	"Dolanna, how did you get this far?" he asked suddenly.  "Do you have any idea how many of us are looking for him?  I don't believe that you got all the way to Dayis!"
	"We have been aboard a ship for two months, Haley," she replied.
	"Yes, of course," he said to himself.  "The search has been on land.  But you must have come ashore, or else Triana wouldn't have sent messages about him.  Did he really destroy half of Den Gauche?"
	Triana?  How did he know Triana?  He--
	--of course!  He was part of Fae-da'Nar!  But what was he?
	"You have me at a disadvantage, Haley," Dolanna said seriously.  "I did not think that you kept in touch with the others."
	"Dolanna, what have you done to me?" he groaned.  "I've already given you hospitality, but now I'm harboring a Rogue.  If the Circle finds out about this--"
	"They will not, Haley," she said.  "We will only be here for a few days, at the most.  Then we will be gone."  She looked at Tarrin.  "You can change, dear one.  He already knows who and what you are."
	Tarrin jumped down off the couch, then shifted into his humanoid form. Haley stared at him for a moment, eyes searching, then he sighed ruefully.  Then he chuckled.  "I don't believe this," he grunted.
	"Who is this, Dolanna?  You know he's not human, don't you?"
	"Tarrin, remember when I told you that I had a Were-wolf friend, who taught me most of what I know about Were-kin?"  He nodded in acknowledgement.  "Well, this is the Were-wolf.  Haley, meet Tarrin.  Tarrin, this is Haley."
	"Triana wasn't lying," Haley said appreciatively, looking up Tarrin's considerable height.  Tarrin looked down on the slender man, finding it hard to believe that he was Were.  He didn't look Were, though he did smell it.  But then again, Jesmind had told him once that Were-cats were unique in that their human shape was no longer their natural form.  It stood to reason that all other Were-kin could take a human shape.  And when he was in human shape, he looked just he had, completely human.  Haley, in human form, would look perfectly human.  "You're a bit raw on the edges, boy.  You need to leash that temper."
	"What are you going to do?" Tarrin asked bluntly.
	"Tarrin, Haley has welcomed us and given us hospitality," Dolanna said.  "That means that until we leave his home, he will protect and see to our needs.  Because he gave you hospitality, he will not do anything to you, or against you."
	"It's a Were-wolf custom," Haley told him calmly.  "Until you leave my range, you are pack-mates.  That makes you family.  But now that custom is making me choose between custom and law."
	"Law?"
	"You're a Rogue, boy.  I should be trying to rip your head off right now, but I've given you hospitality.  Every Were-kin, Dryad, Druid, Faerie, Pixie, Sylph, Nymph, Gnome, and Centaur in the West is hunting for you.  I'm shocked you made it this far without running into someone."
	"How did Triana get here before we did?  Is she still here?" he asked.
	"She didn't come here, boy.  Triana is a Druid, and Druids can send messages to other Druids.  I'm nowhere near Triana's ability, but I know enough Druidic magic to be able to receive messages.  Every Druidic adept in the West is hunting for you."
	"I'm not surprised," he said with a grunt and a sigh.  "Everyone else certainly seems to be after me.  Why not the Druids too?"
	"I am surprised at you, boy.  Do you have any idea how many people you killed in Den Gauche?  You wiped out nearly half the city!"
	"So?" he asked in a grim, blunt voice.
	Haley paled and stared at him in a bit of shock, then he cleared his voice.  He gave Dolanna a desperate look, but her own expression was just as calm, even cold, as his.  "Dolanna, you are my friend, but I just cannot allow him to go out and--"
	"You do not understand the situation, Haley," she said calmly.  "What happened in Den Gauche was entirely the fault of your Were-cat, Triana.  She pushed him into a corner, and he fought back in the only way he had available to him."
	"He's feral, Dolanna!  Almost as feral as Mist!  Maybe even more so!  He's not insane, but insanity would be better than this!"
	"Surprising that you can make that conclusion so quickly," she chided him.  "I will be the first to admit that he has developed feral tendencies, but given the tremendous amount of stress that has been placed on him, it is no surprise.  He is not truly feral, Haley.  Not yet."
	Tarrin looked down at the Were-wolf calmly, his green eyes boring into him, and the impulse to strike first, strike now, crossed his mind more than once.  This Haley wasn't coming across as someone that was going to be very helpful, and he had the power to bring the Druids down on him like a hammer.  He was hovering very close to being an enemy in Tarrin's eyes, and that was a very unhealthy position for someone standing within his paw's reach.  Haley looked up at him with his dark eyes, and he showed no fear.  No fear-smell flashed through his scent.  He was not afraid of Tarrin.  That may be a bad mistake.
	"Don't look at me like prey, boy," Haley warned him in a dangerous tone.  "I know how to fight Were-cats."  He turned his back on Tarrin deliberately, a clear indication that he had no fear, then walked to the door and opened it.  Then he turned and gave Dolanna a penetrating stare.  "I've given you hospitality, and that means that I won't raise my hand against you.  But I want you and him out of my inn tomorrow, Dolanna.  I won't harbor a Rogue for any more than I absolutely have to.  And after you leave, I suggest you make sure I don't find you.  If I do, then I'll have my duty to perform, and I fear it won't go over very well with you."
	"As you wish, Haley," Dolanna said calmly, and then he closed the door.
	Tarrin gave Dolanna a calm look, but she dismissed it with a wave of her hand.  "Do not worry about him, Tarrin.  Haley is a very old friend.  I will talk to him this evening, and hopefully we can reach accommodations."
	"You came here on purpose," he realized.
	"Yes," she admitted.  "Haley is a Druid.  I knew that, and I knew that he would know where you stand among his society.  That was information I needed to know.  But he also gives us a way to present a defense for you to them.  If I allow him to observe you, and let him understand why things have happened as they have, then hopefully he can convince the others that you are not as much a threat as they believe."
	"I guess," he said as Faalken and Azakar came out of their room.
	"I heard what was going on, Dolanna, but we decided not to barge in and mess things up," he told her.  "I doubt that two Were-kin on edge would be very receptive to party crashers."
	"Wise as always, old friend," she told him with a straight face.  "And I will tell you now.  Haley's condition is among one of the best kept secrets in Dayis.  That secret will not be revealed by us.  Is that understood?"
	"Aye," Azakar said as Faalken nodded.
	"Is that clear, your Highness?" Dolanna called in a raised voice.
	From behind the door of the room she chose for herself, there was an angry stamp of a foot.
	"I am glad that that is settled," Dolanna said calmly.  "Now, our dinner has arrived.  Let us get to it before it gets cold.  Tarrin, fetch the others, if you please."
	The meal was spectacular, and the long rides living on sea rations made it that much more heavenly.  Tarrin found himself competing with Azakar over who would get the largest portions, even though there was more food on the table than the entire group could possibly eat.  Tarrin had forgotten what meat tasted like without a cup of salt on it to keep it from spoiling, and it had been since the Stormhavens since he'd had goose or venison.
	After the meal, Tarrin lounged on the couch lazily as Dolanna and Faalken went downstairs to speak with Haley.  The others said their goodnights and wandered to their own rooms, to partake of beds larger than rowcots that didn't sway with a ship.  Tarrin missed the swinging of the deck, in a curious way.  Such motion wasn't all that bad when one wanted to be lulled to sleep, but then again, he'd rarely slept in his bed in humanoid form.  His cat form was much more comfortable for sleeping in cramped conditions.  Now that he was thinking of it, he'd spent the last two months in cat form more than in his humanoid form.  He found it hard to believe that there had been a time that he didn't know how to shapeshift.  It was second nature to him now, something he didn't even have to think about anymore.
	He worried about Haley.  The Were-wolf was in a position to do some serious damage.  He could call on the others, and they could come, or at the very least try to get here before they left.  Tarrin wasn't all that worried about a fight with him, he looked rather scrawny and easy to overwhelm, but that possibility wasn't lost on him either.  He'd rather avoid fighting with him, if only because he was a friend of Dolanna.  That gave him a little respect in Tarrin's eyes.  Not much, but some.
	He wondered what it would be like to be something other than a cat.  Wolves were fairly large animals, and he rather doubted that there were any wild ones on the city-islands.  How did Haley stand it?  Surrounded by humans all the time, unable to express the other side of himself.  At least Tarrin could move about in his other form at will, being lost among the other domesticated animals.  But Haley was a large predator, an animal that organized into packs that cooperated with each other.  How did he translate that into living on the small island, surrounded by humans and Wikuni?  For that matter, why was he here in the first place?  A Were-wolf would have no business in such a place.  Maybe he did change form and go out.  Not to hunt people, or even animals, just to go out and walk around in his wolf form, pretending to be someone's pet.  A pet that would turn heads, but a pet nonetheless.  At least Tarrin didn't attract attention.  He was just another cat.
	Cat.  He had to find a cat to replace him on the ship.  He owed Kern that much for everything the grizzled old sea captain had done for them.  With everyone in bed and Dolanna downstairs, he figured it was the perfect time to go ahead and do just that.  It was dark, and that meant that the cats were out, searching for their nightly meals.  It wouldn't be that hard to track down a stray black cat and offer it a permanent home.
	Besides, after two months cooped up with the others, he wanted a little time by himself.
	Getting out of the inn was as easy as going downstairs and padding through the crowded common room, then out the open door.  Nobody noticed him in the bustle of serving girls and raucous patrons.  After slipping out, he was loose on the streets of Dayis.  They were crowded streets, filled with many Wikuni and sailors of every nation on the planet, and it was still well represented by merchants and other business men.  The other business of the night was prostitution, and he only had to walk a few blocks before returning to the areas where hard currency girls plied their trade.  But his business that night had nothing to do with harlots or merchants.  The scents of other cats weren't easy to find, and he realized that the island nation didn't have a very large population of land-based animals common to mainland cities.  There were wild cats about, but they were very spread out and not easy to find.
	Tarrin spent a few hours tracking down the widely scattered wild cats, but none of them were suitable.  The cat had to be black, and had to be large enough to pass for him.  He found nine cats during those hours of slinking through alleys and winding streets, avoiding the humans and Wikuni, and none of them were the right coloration.  He worked his way back towards the docks, finding another scent in a filthy garbage-strewn alleyway that had human scents in it as well.  A relatively fresh scent.  Looking up, Tarrin realized that the smell, masked by the stench of the refuse, was strong enough to put the owner of it in the alley.  There was also a strong smell of blood.  He hadn't seen any humans when he came in, and there wasn't a blood trail to justify the strong smell.  But there was alot of blood near the alley's end, even spattered on the walls.  Whatever had happened had happened here, and that there was no blood trail leaving said to him that the victim had to still be here.
	It took only a moment to find the source of that smell, and the discovery filled him with a near rage.  It was coming from a very young woman, barely more than a girl, who had been thrown into a pile of reeking garbage.  She had been beaten so severely that he couldn't make out any facial features, and was still literally pouring blood from many savage lacerations and slash marks, saturating the garbage upon which she had been cast.  Someone had literally tortured the young woman, whose clothes marked her has a prostitute, then left her for dead.  Tarrin changed form and gently lifted her out of the pile, then set her on the dirty cobblestones of the alley's paved floor.  She was still alive, but that would only be for a moment longer.  She was nearly gone.  Tarrin instinctively reached out and touched the Weave, and placed a paw on her bare, slashed belly.  She had nearly been disemboweled by a knife.  She was injured both inside and outside, broken bones, cuts, abrasions, bruises to her internal organs, one of her eyes punctured by the point of a knife.  That someone would willingly inflict such ghastly injuries to a defenseless woman and leave her alive, letting her suffer until time took her from the world, seemed monstrous.  Utterly monstrous.  There was more, lower down, an anomoly in her body's chemistry--
	She was pregnant!  She was with child, and many of the injuries centered around her stomach.  Had the attacker known she was bearing life?  If so, had the attacker specifically focused on killing the unborn?
	High Sorcery would not be held back this time, but it didn't matter.  Tarrin's fury gave him an icy control that knuckled the awesome might of High Sorcery under, and without thinking about it, he managed to control that power that had always overwhelmed him before.  Tarrin's paws limned over with the ghostly radiance that marked the use of High Sorcery, and he wove together those flows of water, earth, and Divine power that made up a healing spell, then released it into her.  The girl's back arched severely as the intense cold sensation froze over the pain, but her slashes and lacerations stopped bleeding and began to seal over.  Hidden injuries also healed over at an astonishing rate.  Her eyes filled back in and repaired themselves, and her broken nose took on the shape it had originally held.  Bone marrow was magically incited to produce the essential elements that made up blood, and broken bones quickly and seamlessly set themselves and fused.   After the healing was done, Tarrin wove together a pure weave of Divine energy and released it into her, letting the power of the Weave itself infuse the girl to replace the vital energy she had lost in the healing.  She would still feel exhausted, but it would be more of a feeling of exertion than the usual feeling that someone had sucked all her blood out through her nose that accompanied normal Healing.  She was pregnant, and if he didn't replenish the energy she had lost, her unborn would suffer because of it.
	Her eyes fluttered open as Tarrin pulled his paw away.  They were beautiful eyes, blue as the sea, and they were well matched to her blond, honey-colored hair.  That anyone would try to kill such a pretty young girl itself was criminal.  She looked a bit confused, staring up at him blearily, then she coughed a few times to clear some blood from her lungs.  "Who did this?" Tarrin asked in a quiet tone full of promised vengeance.
	She looked at him, her eyes clearing.  "My, my, shado," she said in a heavily accented voice.  "My agent."
	"Agent?"
	"He who arranges my customers, yes."
	"Where is he?"
	"What will you do?" she asked after a moment.
	"What he did to you," he replied in a tone of utter emotionlessness.
	That made her eyes harden slightly.  "Go out and turn left.  Two streets down, in the Laughing Mermaid inn," she said.  "Make him hurt."
	"He'll hurt," Tarrin said in an ugly tone, flexing his claws menacingly.  He leaned down and sniffed delicately at her neck and shoulder.  His scent was still on her from his contact, and it sealed the man's doom.  That scent was blazed into his memory, and there was nowhere in Dayis where he would be safe from Tarrin's avenging fury.
	It didn't take him long to reach the Laughing Mermaid.  It was a rangy, run-down place that catered to sailors and the prostitutes that served them.  The place had no door, just two shutter-like wooden panels hanging in the doorframe.  He pushed them open and stepped into the inn, his sharp eyes taking in all of the patrons in the large common room in a single glance.  Most were armed, and many of them had the look and bearing of men used to having the floor rock underneath them.  But one stood out, because his hair was wet.  It would need to be wet, because with as much blood as the girl lost, some of it had to get on her attacker.  Tarrin moved directly towards the man, who was sitting at a table in the back of the inn, attended by four young women who were dressed as prostitutes.  Tarrin knocked one drunken man out of his way as he moved directly towards the man, inciting a loud protest in a slurring voice.  But he paid it no heed.  He reached the table and stood there for a second, giving the ladies a chance to get out of the way.  The man noticed him and looked up, his face serene and a smile gracing his features.  "Well, you're an interesting Wikuni.  Have a taste for human girls?"
	Tarrin put his paws on the table and leaned forward, just close enough to get a very good whiff of the man's scent.  It was him.  And the smell of the girl's blood was still all over him.
	"You didn't clean off all the blood," Tarrin told him in an icy tone.
	That serene smile dropped, then turned into a mask of terror when Tarrin's eyes exploded into the green radiance that clearly marked his rage.  It would be the last thing the man would ever see.  The girls shrieked in terror when Tarrin's paw lashed out and hit the man square in the face, palm first, the padded palm breaking his nose and his claws punching through both eyes.  Tarrin's claws hooked into the sockets, and he dragged the man back across the table by that grisly clawhold, as the man shrieked in agony and grabbed his wrist with both hands.  Tarrin picked him completely up off the table by that grip, then slammed him down into it with enough force to shatter the table and drive the man to the floor.  Blood erupted from his mouth and sprayed on Tarrin's palm, when wood shard penetrated deeply into his body, stunning him enough for Tarrin to let go, then hold out a single finger with claw extended, a claw sharper than any knife.  He slashed the man five times, in the exact places where he had slashed the girl, then backhanded him to break his left cheekbone.  Claws punched into flesh as Tarrin picked him up off the broken table, then he turned and whipped him back down, letting him smash into the reed-strewn floor with enough force to break bones and split the wood beneath him.
	That was enough.  He wouldn't survive from those injuries.  Shaking blood from his paw absently, he stared directly at the four horrified young women, his expression blank.  They were clutching onto each other.  He noticed the dead silence in the inn; the fury and speed of his assault had taken them all aback, and he was done before even one tried to intervene.  "Don't grieve for him," Tarrin told them in a cold tone.  "What he got is what he gave to a young girl not an hour ago, something he would have done to any of you.  He got what he gave.  No more, no less."
	Then the turned and left the man to bleed on the floor, and wait for Death to come and claim him.
	That bit of business concluded, Tarrin walked out of the inn and into an alley, then changed form and stalked off.  He was still trying to find a cat to replace him, and he wasn't going to stop until he did.

	He snuck back into the inn close to dawn, his business finished.  He found a suitable cat about an hour after killing the man who had so grievously injured the young girl, and spent most of the rest of the night teaching it what it needed to know.  Once he had that done, and assured the cat that Kern would feed it and care for it, he took it to the Star of Jerod and woke up Kern.  He introduced the cat, explained how to instruct it to pretend to be him, then explained the cat's demands in return for this service.  Kern was very receptive, for a cat's demands usually went no further than a steady supply of food and a warm place to sleep comfortably.
	The inn's common room still had people inside it, but it was nearly empty.  Only a couple of patrons and a single serving girl remained in the room, the three men drinking from tankards and talking in low tones as the girl cleaned tables nearby.  Haley stepped from a door near the bar and his eyes seemed to be drawn directly to where Tarrin was standing, near the stairs.  He gave Tarrin a blunt look, then pointed to a table near the back, to which Haley moved and sat down.  He was demanding an audience of sorts, he guessed.  There was no real reason to refuse.  Tarrin jumped up onto the table and gave the Were-wolf a calm look.
	"And where have you been all night?" he asked in a slightly hostile voice.
	He didn't see any reason to reply.  He wouldn't understand anyway.  He just stood up and walked to the edge of the table, then jumped down and started for the stairs.
	Upstairs, he settled onto the couch just as the door to Allia's room opened.  She padded out on bare feet and a nightgown lent by Dolanna, looking like a dark-skinned rose in the pink garment.  Her long silver hair was a bit wild, and her eyes hung heavily.  The night without sleep didn't affect Tarrin at all, for he could go days, rides, without any real sleep.  Allia didn't sleep long, but she always had trouble waking up.
	"Tarrin," she said sleepily.  "Dolanna was looking for you.  You were gone all night."
	"I had to find a replacement cat for Kern," he told her in the manner of the Cat.  "It wasn't easy."
	"That Haley was also looking for you.  I don't know why."
	"He probably had a good reason," he said knowingly.
	Keritanima and Miranda came from their room.  Keritanima was wearing one of her dressing gowns and looked very much like herself, rather than the strict, stern Kaylin.  Miranda wore a soft robe that was tied loosely, hanging off one shoulder.  Miranda looked as if she wanted to go right back in there and go back to sleep.  "Morning," Keritanima said.
	D