“What?” Ghent couldn't tell if Elayra was annoyed by something he said, did, or didn't do. Oblivious to his mistake, he took another bite of toatunt, an incredulous look on his face. He would never understand her. 
	In order to get his less-than-ideal breakfast over with, he stuffed another piece in his mouth, just in time to hear Elayra’s disparaging comment. 
	Ghent’s eyes went wide. He whipped his head around to seek out Drust, hoping – [i]praying[/i] – that Elayra was playing a cruel joke. The Knight's reaction confirmed his fears. He'd eaten a toad. Twice. 
	Horrified, Ghent stared at the last bit of jerky in his hand, the texture suddenly making sense. His stomach lurched. Those weren’t bumps, they were [i]warts.[/i]
	With a yell, Ghent dropped the jerky as if it had burned him. Suddenly, he was back in the school bathroom again, doing everything in his power not to throw up. Warts. He'd eaten warts! A few dozen of them, most likely. 
	The knowledge was scarring enough on its own, but his mouth was still full, and Ghent didn’t dare spit out their rations in front of Drust. As if to make matters worse, his saliva was soaking into the jerky, helping extract what he believed to be swamp water. He had a choice: he could taste Drust's blade, or swallow what he now knew to be toad meat. 
	Ghent’s skin crawled. He leaned forward on his palms, his head aimed downward. For a moment, it looked as if he was going to spit everything out – or vomit – but he did neither. He forced himself to choke down the rest, sputtering and coughing afterward as if he'd been poisoned. For all he knew, he had been.
	"You…” Ghent drew a breath, his sentence broken by a ragged cough. "You guys didn't want me to eat chocolate...but you'll let me eat a TOAD?!" He clasped a hand over his mouth, clutching his side with the other as he gave an overdramatic groan. "...I think I'm gonna hurl."