Chapter 5: The Warm Basin

The spring ran warm at the back of the cave, in a stone basin worn smooth by a thousand years of water.

Steam hung over it in the lamplight, and the air smelled of minerals and wet rock.

"This is the best thing in the whole cave," Thad said, "and nobody used it?"

"You said it was too hot for cubs," Tuck said.

"I said that?"

"You said a lot of things."

Thad pushed his sleeves up past his elbows, tested the water with his wrist, and sat Tuck on the edge of the basin.

"It's not too hot. It's perfect. Come on, in you go."

The cub eyed the water with deep suspicion.

"Will it hurt?"

"It will be the most boring thing that ever happened to you."

Tuck lowered one paw in, then another, then all four, and his ears went slowly up as the warmth reached his bones.

"Oh," he said.

"See?"

"It's like being held," Tuck said.

Thad swallowed hard and reached for a handful of soapwort.

He worked it into the black coat with careful fingers, and the dirt came off the cub in grey clouds.

That was when he saw the marks.

They crossed the cub's flank and the top of his back in thin pale lines, healed over and nearly hidden by fur.

Some were old.

Some were not.

The notch in the left ear was a bite, he realized.

The lines were from a switch, or a stick, or whatever had been lying close at hand.

His hands stopped.

He wanted to put his fist through the wall of the cave.

He wanted to find the old Thad's soul in whatever dark place it had gone, and drag it back out, and make it look.

"Thad?"

"I'm here."

Tuck's gold eyes were steady on his face.

"You stopped."

"I know. Sorry."

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