“You’ve lived in the Courtyard for several months now, and you’ve been learning all kinds of things during that time. So why are you dumber now than you used to be?”

Meg stiffened. “Jester! That’s not a nice thing to say, even as a joke.”

“I’m not joking.”

She studied his face, his eyes, and realized he really wasn’t joking, wasn’t saying something to create a bit of mischief. Jester being completely serious made her uneasy.

“Humans talk about having a role model, someone they can learn from,” Jester continued. “You know who I think you’ve been using as a role model lately?”

“Ruth or Merri Lee?”

He shook his head. “Skippy.”

Meg stared at the Coyote. “But Skippy . . .”

“Has a skippy brain and has trouble holding on to parts of what he’s learned, which is why youngsters like him don’t usually survive in the wild country. If Skippy chases a deer and gets knocked down and bruised, he should learn that deer could hurt him if he isn’t careful. But what his brain understands is that particular deer could hurt him, so he goes out the next morning and chases a different deer—and gets knocked down again. And maybe this time the injury is serious because he’s still healing from the previous day’s bumps and bruises.

“When the Elementals and Elders struck Lakeside a few weeks ago, you knew you couldn’t stay near the humans who were offered shelter around the Market Square. You came to the Pony Barn—a place where you wouldn’t have to deal with humans and also wouldn’t be alone. You showed sense, Meg. Then Simon and Vlad do this job fair to help Tolya find the workers he needs in Bennett, and what do you do? You spend the whole first day working in the Liaison’s Office—a place you already knew wasn’t safe for you when there are so many strangers around—and get knocked over by the pressure of being close to so many potential futures. And those were Simple Life folk, who should have been the easiest humans to deal with. So what do you do on the second day of the fair? You go into the office and get knocked over harder and faster. But you were still going to open the office today. Why?”

Put that way, it did sound pretty dumb.

“All my friends could do their jobs, even with the job fair going on,” Meg mumbled, not meeting his eyes. “I didn’t want to be different.”

Jester looked bewildered. “But you are different.”

“I don’t want to be the one who can’t cope with something that is easy for everyone else to do.”

“How do you know it’s easy?”

She leaned toward him until they were almost nose to nose. “They’re in the Market Square, doing their jobs.”

“They’re not going to cut themselves to release some of the hornet’s nest of prophecies that are buzzing under the skin. They may wonder what the future holds for those humans, but they’re not going to hurt themselves to find out.” Jester leaned back a little. “You don’t want to be different? I understand that. I’m the only Coyote here in a Courtyard controlled by Wolves. It’s not dangerous for me to be here like it would be for a regular coyote to tangle with a pack of wolves, but I am alone here.”

“Do you wish it was different, that there was someone else like you? Or that you could be like another group of terra indigene, fit in with them better?”

“Being the only one can have advantages. Looking after the ponies and dealing with the girls at the lake isn’t without risk, and I might not have taken that risk if there had been other Coyotegard here to work with as part of a pack. I probably wouldn’t have lived in the Green Complex with Wolves and Sanguinati and a Grizzly, not to mention Tess. But I am the only Coyote in this Courtyard, and I get to poke my nose in all kinds of things my kind usually wouldn’t see.”

“You’re even more curious than the Crowgard,” Meg said.

“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

She laughed.

Jester thought for a moment. “What would have happened in Lakeside these past few months if you hadn’t been different from the other humans who work here?”

Meg shifted on the hay bale as she considered the question. Regular humans had worked in the compound where she’d lived. But she wouldn’t have been one of them, wouldn’t have taken a job where other people, where children, were treated like property. Would she? “I probably wouldn’t have traveled to Lakeside if I hadn’t run away from the Controller and followed the visions that showed me how to escape. I—” wouldn’t have met Sam . . . or Simon.

“Simon opened a few of the stores to humans and had human employees for several years before you arrived. They were considered nonedible, but we still saw them as prey. If you, the human who was not prey, hadn’t come along looking for a job, Simon, Vlad, Henry, and Tess wouldn’t have changed the way they thought of the human employees—and some of those humans might have died in the blizzard last Febros. If the females working here hadn’t become your friends, hadn’t become a human pack the Wolfgard and Sanguinati decided to protect, those humans wouldn’t have been sheltered here when the Elders came through the city. If you weren’t here, Simon and Lieutenant Montgomery wouldn’t have had a particular reason to work together, and Montgomery wouldn’t have had a way to prove he was a trustworthy human. If you weren’t here, Nathan would have stayed with the Addirondak Wolfgard for the full time he was supposed to be away from the Courtyard, and Lizzy might not have reached Lakeside because Nathan wouldn’t have been on the train to protect her.” Jester stood up. “All those things happened because you’re different, Meg. Don’t be so quick to want to be like everyone else. Crows and Hawks and Owls can fly. I can’t. I don’t need to jump off a cliff to prove it to myself. Why do you?”