"Come on! He wants to see you! Come! Come!"

Henry's eyes flew open, meeting the familiar face of Curie, her little snout mere inches from his face. He groaned.

Three days had passed since Henry had convinced Thanatos to stay at the nibbler colony, and he had to admit it had been the most pleasant three days since his exile. There was plenty of food and drink, and he was never alone—something he had grown to appreciate very much. And finally, he no longer had to constantly stress himself over all kinds of dangers . . . or his own resources. For the first time in what seemed like forever, he felt safe. He had almost forgotten what that was like.

Safety. Henry pondered the frightening unfamiliarity of the concept. Ever since his parents had died, some eight years ago, he had not truly felt it anymore. As a child, he had suffered from paranoia and panic attacks and although he had learned to counteract and prevent the attacks over time, the feelings had never really gone away. In Regalia, it had not been an issue in years, but since becoming an outcast, the fears had suddenly become reality and Henry didn't know if that made it better or worse.

He could not battle phantom fears as he could the physical versions. But the monsters that lived only in his imagination could not actually harm him; the ones that waited in the dark tunnels in the Dead Land could.

All that he knew was that, at this colony, neither bothered him, and that was a most profound sense of relief. To his own surprise, he felt . . . great. Better than he'd thought he ever could in exile. Was this it? The key to winning his challenge? Was here where he would finally be able to live?

Henry didn't know. What he knew was that the nibblers had accepted them with grace, allowing them to recover from their ordeals in the Dead Land. Both his and Thanatos' injuries had been properly treated and for the first time in a while, Henry found himself eating regularly and more than raw fish.

They hadn't even asked where they had come from; all Henry had told Lovelace was that he and Thanatos had no permanent home. He was surprised at how little the mice seemed to care about their origins—the fact that they'd had enough honor to save members of their community had apparently sufficed for gaining their trust. Well, he was not complaining.

The nibblers had not only taken them in, but everyone had treated them with utmost kindness. At this point, nearly every single individual had found time to exchange a few words with them—words of welcome and gratitude.

Henry had familiarized himself with the colony's layout, although he hadn't ventured into the jungle beyond the hot spring. Maybe at one point, he would dare it. But for now, he had ended up in this isolated piece of heaven among hellish jungle, and he saw no need to leave it.

"You coming?"

Henry jerked up. He had been so lost in thought that he had almost forgotten Curie. "Hey, what . . . where am I supposed to come?" He was still dazed from sleep, then remembered Curie's words from earlier.

"And . . . who wants to see me?"

Instead, a different voice replied: "Her father. I have just spoken with Lovelace and she says he wanted to see both of us this morning." Thanatos fluttered in through the entrance of their bedroom cave. "Let's go."

Without waiting for either of them, the flier turned and flew ahead.

"W-Wait, hold on, I didn't even—!"

He was gone before Henry could finish his sentence. "Great." He rose listlessly, shook out his hair, slipped into a fresh shirt, and threw on a cape as well, then automatically reached for his backpack that he'd made a habit of carrying everywhere, even though he still expected it to crumble to pieces any day. He would replace it, but he didn't have the means or materials.

Arduously pulling on his sandals, Henry staggered out of the cave. "And when do we eat breakfast?"

***

In a far from stellar mood, Henry followed Curie and Thanatos through a winding—and, by the looks of it, mostly unused—tunnel he'd never traversed before. He'd just about managed to grab water and a piece of fruit, but he finished eating long before his stomach ceased growling.

Maybe five minutes later, they found themselves in front of an opening that was sealed by a floor-length curtain. It was the first time Henry had seen any sort of door in the colony but before he could ask for it, Curie darted past him and through.

Henry hurriedly shoved the curtain aside for himself and as soon as he entered the room, he was met with brightness. When his eyes had adjusted and he took his first look around, his jaw dropped.

The curtain led to what had to be . . . a different world. The cave beyond seemed smaller than it likely was, due to the uncountable stacks of materials and pieces of machinery cramped into it, most of which Henry had never seen. In the furthest corner, he made out the flickering of a fire. When he stepped closer, he recognized it as a massive forge with two bellows and a large anvil, surrounded by scattered smith's tools. The space across from it was taken by a massive stone table covered in tools and paper scrolls with markings Henry didn't understand.

When he managed to shut his gaping mouth and took another step forward, he saw the same markings covering the walls; the density varied from nigh-illegibility to sections that were untouched altogether. Sketches of machinery and other things he would have to inspect closer to make sense of them accompanied the cryptic symbols—some sort of text, Henry assumed.

Henry's first thought was that this place must belong to a human; as far as he knew, no other species used forges, built machines, or even wrote more than a few words.

He tore his eyes away from the walls and looked around for the owner. Curie startled him when she confidently slipped through the clutter and jumped up and over the table. Moments later, cries emerged from where she had landed. "Ugh . . . Cu-Curie, sto . . . Argh . . . stop that!" No! No, not that!"

Although the cries were quickly replaced by laughter, both Curie's and that of a deeper voice. Henry moved closer, trying to make out who the voice belonged to. He registered Thanatos' quiet "Remarkable . . ." only on the side.

Something rustled behind the table, and then a paw appeared, followed by a head. The head of—no, not a human—a nibbler. His fur was pitch black and disheveled. A lengthy scar ran down the right side of his face and his paws, adorned with claws longer than those of the average nibbler and showing signs of extensive use, were covered in old burn marks. He wore a heavy leather apron and several belts with pockets and tools wrapped around his torso.

The nibbler slipped out from behind the table with Curie on his head; she happily kneaded his ear with her little paw. "Oh . . . ?" His eyes widened when he spotted the newcomers. Then his expression eased up again. "You must be the human and flier who saved my—no, get away from that!"

He leaped at Henry with surprising agility, then yanked him away from one of the machines he had gotten closer to than he'd realized. "S-Sorry," Henry mumbled, holding the inquisitive stare of his unusual green eyes.

He eyed Henry up and down and then turned. "Really, this is just my luck. The one time a human ends up in this remote place, he is an imbecile."

"Hey!" Henry put his hands on his hips but the nibbler ignored him.

"Lovelace said you intended to stay for a while?"

"We do," Henry said absentmindedly. He still hadn't wrapped his head around all of this. This place, this nibbler—who had called him an imbecile but looked at him with intrigue more than anything.

"They are nice, Papa. They save me and Ganpa!"

Well, at least he had the baby on his side.

So this was . . . Curie's father. Lovelace's partner. Now that he thought about it, Platonius had indeed mentioned something about him being a craftsman—however that could be understood. And he had also warned that he was a people-shy loner who never went out. Henry eyed the room, then the nibbler, and thought he understood where that had come from.

"A while, yes," Thanatos replied. "She offered us shelter, as we have nowhere else we currently desire to be."

"Outcasts." The way the nibbler said it, it wasn't a question. "Heroic outcasts. Now I have seen everything."

Henry found himself much more intrigued by the large, cluttered working table than by the conversation. He set his backpack down and moved closer, noticing that all the scattered tools had odd handles, unlike any he had ever seen.

"Hey! Do. Not. Touch!"

Henry jumped and nearly dropped the tool he'd picked up to inspect. When he turned, he was face-to-face with the nibbler, who placed his paw down atop the tool he had meant to pick up. "I do not like it when people touch my things. Everything here," he said, striding over to the forge, "is in exactly the place I want it to be, and I will not have my order disrupted by intruders!"

Henry raised an eyebrow as he took in the scattered tools and pondered that he had just referred to the utter chaos around them as 'order.'

"If we're intruders, why did you even tell us to come here?" He understood his territorial anxiety on some level, but his patience was running out. He was hungry and tired and had had about enough of people treating him so condescendingly all the time.

"Because," the nibbler said and turned. "I wanted to thank you in person. For saving my daughter and her grandfather. It is not often that you come across such heroism in the Dead Land."

"It was the least we could do," said Thanatos. "No matter how rare they are, heroic outcasts do exist."

"Is that so?" the black nibbler asked, looking at only Henry. There was wisdom and experience in his eyes, but, to Henry's surprise, there was also the same mischievous, romantic glimmer he had seen in his daughter's eyes.

"Maybe I can use you after all, then," the nibbler said but Henry was barely listening. He was occupied with the room. He had never tried his hand at tinkering before but he had always found the concept fascinating. He vaguely remembered his mother had been obsessed with the craft, and now, in this place that may as well be a treasure cove, his hands suddenly itched to do what the nibbler had forbidden—to touch and explore, to stick his nose into every nook, pull every lever, push every button, and disassemble every device.

"Oh no, he really is an imbecile."

Henry whipped around. "You better not be talking about me!"

The nibbler exchanged a glance with Thanatos. Then Curie, still on her father's head, suddenly whispered something in his ear and he snorted with laughter, giving her a playful shove before she leaped to the ground and dashed out the door. "However your mother is keeping up!"

Turning back to his guests, the grin vanished. "I was talking about you. Because, as it seems, you cannot even listen when you are being spoken to."

"Sorry, just this place . . ." Henry gestured around. "Who made it? It's magnificent."

"Isn't it?" The nibbler laughed. "Alright, so, from the top." He raised his paw and counted his fingers. "That is where we are. Let me see, I thanked them for saving my family, yes. Now, before you zoned out so conveniently, I said that I could use you after all."

"Use us?" Henry frowned.

"Use you!" The nibbler pointed at Henry. "You. Singular. You mustn't fret, though," he said in Thanatos' direction. "I'm certain that Lovelace will find a suitable occupation for you as well. You, however," he pointed back at Henry. "You and those thumbs of yours, to be precise, will be mine. Do you have any idea how long I have waited for a human to show their face here? I pride myself on doing much by myself, but I am still limited by the lack of thumbs of my species," he said ruefully.

Oh, right. Henry suddenly remembered Platonius saying that they would be asked to help out around the colony if they wanted to stay. Did that mean he would be compelled to work here? The choice made sense; humans were widely known as the only species able to build machines because they had thumbs. But . . . Henry looked around, awestruck by the sudden realization that everything here must indeed have been crafted by this nibbler. "You made all this yourself?" he asked, disbelievingly.

"Yes, yes," the nibbler replied. "But do not fear; there is plenty of work still to be done. How well are you with manual labor?"

"Oh, he loves manual labor," Thanatos chimed in with elation before Henry could speak. "And then, while you're at it, you could teach the brat manners and maybe even some discipline."

The nibbler laughed, and Henry shot Thanatos a furious glare. "Not funny!"

"Oh, but it is. Either way, good luck to the two of you." With that, he spread his wings, careful not to destroy anything, and was out of the cave within seconds. Henry stared after him, blinking in disbelief.

The nibbler's next laughing fit snapped him out of his daze. "Well, is that how it will be?"

"Have I ever had a choice?"

"No," the nibbler said. "It is either work or leave the colony."

Henry groaned. No, I do not enjoy manual labor, he yelled at Thanatos in his head but instead, he said: "Fine. Where do I start?"

"The bellow," the nibbler called. "Let me show you how one should work it first though. I will not have you break it."

Henry groaned again and took his backpack back up to store it somewhere. It seemed as though the peaceful, quiet days here were over. Well . . . he clutched the backpack to his chest. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad. But when he was about to place the backpack down, the last string holding the handle finally ripped and the backpack hit the ground, unraveling on impact. Henry cursed under his breath.

The nibbler gave him an amused look, bowing to pick up the bundle of pencils that had landed at his feet, only to freeze at the sight of Gorger's tooth beside it.

"Is this a gnawer tooth?" He inspected the worthless piece of bone like a valuable antique.

Henry shrugged. He was busy skittering around on his knees, collecting his sprawled belongings. "Yes. I originally wanted to make some sort of dagger out of it, but I couldn't, and . . ." He meant to continue and explain whose tooth it was, then froze in his tracks.

He had dived after his whetstone that had rolled off in between two high shelves and when he extended his arm for it, he found himself staring at the sigil of Regalia.

It was a chest lodged into the furthest corner between the shelves, and it was partially open. Henry couldn't help it. He lifted the lid and peeked inside. It was stuffed with old letters and documents, and on top rested something with a name in an elegant, bleached-out hand that had Henry's heart skip a frantic beat.

Before he could think twice about what he was doing, he had already snatched the old notebook and stuffed it between the fabrics of the bag he was holding.

Henry's heart hammered out of his chest in fear that the nibbler may have grown suspicious of him for taking so long. But when he slid out from between the shelves and stood—barely able to hold everything he owned in just his arms—he saw him over at his table, inspecting Gorger's tooth with a magnifying glass.

"Any chance I could have it?" he asked, waving at the blade. "I have an idea . . ."

Henry hesitated; this tooth was still his trophy. But . . . he didn't technically need it. "Sure," he shrugged, "if I can have a new backpack in return."

The nibbler laughed. "Deal."

Henry's heart still hammered so loudly that he feared he would hear it. The notebook burned in his arms, shoving questions into his mind that he needed answered. But . . . he couldn't leave yet. He had to work the bellows, and who knew what else? He wrapped the fabric of his backpack tightly around the book and dropped everything in a corner.

"So, will you get at it?" the nibbler reminded him, waving toward the forge.

"Yes, yes," Henry groaned and stood up, trying to calm his frantically hammering heart.

"Oh, before that . . ." the nibbler stood directly in front of him, making Henry jump. "I didn't catch your name."

"Henry," he said as calmly as he could.

"Teslas," the nibbler replied. "I am Teslas. And delighted."

Under different circumstances, Henry may have noticed the slight pause before his reply or the marginally squinted eyes. But as he trotted over to the bellow, Henry thought only about how long this would keep him from his answers. The kind that only the notebook in the remains of his backpack could give him.

***

"The guy is a slave driver!" Henry complained, collapsing at the nibblers' equivalent of a dinner table next to Thanatos.

Teslas had had him work either the bellows or carry heavy equipment the entire day—without a lunch break. None of the work had even required thumbs. But the worst part was how he had still not gotten around to reading the notebook he had snatched earlier. He had dropped it off in his bedroom, together with his belongings, and then gone straight to dinner. He had been distracted and restless all day because of it, and now he was dead on his feet and nearly starved too.

"Good," Thanatos said. "Maybe you will actually learn some discipline, then."

"What do I need discipline for?" whined Henry as he loaded his plate with food. The flier had only been compelled to fly a few errands, and it did not seem to have strained him much.

Although exhausting as it had been, he couldn't deny that it had also been incredibly fascinating to see Teslas work. He would have never thought that so many things were possible without thumbs, but Teslas was inventive, to say the least. He had custom handles for his tools that allowed him to hold them more easily. He also owned a unique piece of equipment in the shape of a pair of glove-like pieces of leather to which some of his tools could be attached. For the things that couldn't, they had clamps in place of a thumb.

As eager as he was to get back to his bedroom and read the notebook, he was brimming with curiosity about Teslas himself as well. So, as soon as he spotted Lovelace, he asked her about it.

"It is unexpected, is it not? As a human, to find a skilled craftsman among another species," she said with a smile. "And as much as it might surprise you, the explanation for it should not."

"Oh?" Henry took the first bite from his second grilled fish, eagerly taking in the food he had missed the entire day. Lovelace nodded and sat down across from him.

"All of this started a long time ago," she began, pensively staring at the ceiling. "Teslas was . . . Well, he was always special. Our tranquil life here was never enough for him. Back then, he told me that there were so many ideas in his head, and not a single of them was achievable. At times, he claimed he feared that his head might explode from overcrowding. So when he came of age, he left."

"Left?" Henry echoed, "Where did he go?"

She had claimed it wouldn't earlier, but Lovelace's response surprised him. "To live with you. With the humans," she said.

"He went to Regalia?" Henry exclaimed, his mind flying to the crate with Regalia's sigil. The notebook . . . A suspicion suddenly rose in him and he had to use a considerable amount of will to not leap up and flee and read the notebook at once.

"No," Lovelace responded, "not Regalia. The second settlement you have, the one close to our brothers and sisters at the Fount."

"Oh." Henry forced himself to stay in his seat and stuffed himself with food to distract himself. "What did he do there?"

"He studied, and later he worked," said Lovelace. "He claimed to have learned from the most skilled inventor the humans had had at the time. She helped him make the gloves he uses to replace thumbs and everything else he brought with himself when he returned."

A teacher—a human woman who had been his teacher. Henry breathed in and out and took another bite from his meal. He was suddenly frightened to ask this question, but he asked anyway: "Did he ever mention . . . who she was?"

To his deeply unjustified relief, Lovelace shook her head. "Not that I remember. If he has, I have long forgotten. His return lies eight years in the past now."

"Eight . . ." Henry counted in his head and the number matched. He gritted his teeth, eyeing the exit.

"It must seem so long to one so young," Lovelace said conversationally. "He had stayed with the humans for ten years at the time. Most of us had given up hope that he would ever return. But then, one day . . . he was back, as suddenly as he had disappeared, all those years ago."

"His teacher had died."

Lovelace looked up at him with surprise. "How do you know this?"

Henry shook his head and when he didn't respond, she hesitantly continued: "Yes, indeed. And so he claimed that it was time to return to his people with all the ideas and inventions he had collected. And he has not left his cave much since." She laughed. "You know, our people here greatly admire him for what he did and is still doing for us." Her gaze trailed toward the exit of the cave, admiration shining in her eyes. "He has made our lives easier in so many ways: he improved the light system we have here, built a contraption that helps us catch fish, and so much more. Most of us are learned scholars, but none have the skills to work with their hands like him."

Scholars—that sounded more like what he'd heard of the nibblers. From what he remembered Vikus had explained, they were usually invested in their studies, often working with the humans too—math, geometry, geology, and other types of science.

But it mattered little. Henry stood so abruptly that he startled even Thanatos. "Excuse me," he said. "It has been a long day. I am tired." He turned, not without stuffing a few fruits into his pocket and grabbing a slice of bread.

"Good night," called Lovelace and Thanatos threw him a suspicious look but he didn't say anything. Henry barely noticed. He only had one thing on his mind, even more so than before: the answers contained in the tattered leather notebook. And he wouldn't wait a moment longer.