Okay. It's - it's okay. She doesn't want to talk about it, and that's good, and he'll follow her and everything will be fine.

Please don't be mad, he begs, silent and desperate. Please. Please please please. Daine's not a friend exactly, he doesn't know her, but she's being nice and talking to him and that's more than he usually gets. Just let him hold onto something normal, just once, even if it's only for a little while.

"Really?" He wonders if she's lying too, but it doesn't sound like a lie. He knows how lies sound. But he has a silent thing without a face that's followed him all his life, so maybe talking to animals isn't so weird. "That sounds nice," he says wistfully. Animals seem nicer about being a freak than people are. They don't whisper or taunt.