Constance Ním, daughter of the Bristol Avon, looks long upon Sir Robena Coilleghille, the Bear Knight. Her eyes are dark as the fens, and betray just as many secrets. She does not flee through the open portal behind. The candles flicker in their sconces.

When she walks forward, her footfall leaves no sound, but far off there is the crunch of snow. When she pulls the chair back that she may be seated, the merest brush of her fingers sends it groaning and grinding. And when she sits next to Robena Coilleghille, her breath, too, that is silent for all that the knight can see the condensation on her lips.

Then she draws from her trailing sleeve the small, white bone, the yellowing teeth, impossibly already clean. She sets the skull of the fox on her plate, the sockets hollow and delicate, the teeth interlocking.

“Was it helpless when it died?”

She does not need to say [i]too.[/i] She does not need to ask Robena if she drove her weapon into the fox’s back with a sickening crunch. She looks down at Robena’s broad, broad hand and does not touch the soup.