Deep in the night, in the silver-horned-stag-camp. Everyone is asleep except Alexis, who has the watch. Gustav is rolled in his blanket with Sally perched near his bedroll. Spyglass is tucked against Ethelred, one eye half open toward the fire.
Alexis sits cross-legged on the cold ground with a strip of liver and his knife and cuts it into small pieces, loud enough that Sally can hear it.
“Sally, do you want some meat? Sorry, I don’t have eyeballs.”
Sally lifts her head. After a moment she hops off her perch and crosses the ground to him.
“Eyeballs!” She pecks the dirt twice.
Alexis shrugs. “No eyeballs. Do you want this meat?” He holds out a small piece.
She takes it from his fingers and swallows it. He holds out another, and it goes the same way.
“Try to catch this one.”
He tosses a piece in a low arc. It bounces off her head and lands in the dirt. She eats it off the ground like that was the plan.
“More?”
“More!”
“Catch. I’ll make it go higher so you have more time.”
He lofts the next piece. She snaps it out of the air and gulps it down. Alexis grins.
He sets three flat stones in a row between them and holds up the last piece of liver so she can see it.
He slides the liver under the middle stone and moves the stones around one another, slowly. Alexis narrates in a low voice while he moves the stones. Sally watches with one eye and then the other. When he stops, she hops to the middle stone and flips it with her beak. She takes the liver.
“Fine. Once more.” He cuts another piece, hides it, and shuffles faster this time. She goes straight to the right stone. He does it a third time, as fast as his novice hands can shuffle these rocks. She picks the right stone again and gives him a look, as if the game is beneath her.
“Fair enough. We’ll move onto something else for a little while.”
He leans back against his pack and pulls the silver coin from his pocket. He walks it across his knuckles. Sally hops closer and tilts her head.
“Perhaps some day I can teach you simple coin tricks.”
He walks it across again. When it reaches the edge of his hand, she darts in, snatches it, and hops out of reach with the coin in her beak.
“Mine,” she says around it.
Alexis laughs quietly. “That was mine. Make a deal?”
She holds it up and looks at him.
He holds out another small piece of liver in one hand and his other hand is is palm up empty. “Trade?”
She considers it for a long moment. Then she drops the coin into his palm and takes the liver.
“Good bargain.” He rolls the coin over his knuckles once and puts it away.
Sally hops onto the nearest stone and fluffs her feathers. Her next sound is only a croak, and the one after that is another. Alexis looks at her for a moment.
“Perhaps we’ll get more time to talk some other night.” Alexis shrugs.
He picks up the stones. A piece of liver goes under the left one, and he shuffles. Sally goes to it without hesitating.
For the rest of his watch the two of them sit in the firelight, the stones sliding across the dirt and the crow flipping them over.
