"It will be fine. They're all hiss and no claw, except for one idiot who's been executed already, the leader of that gang of werewolves.

There was some grumbling in the water town about Merta doing a surprise inspection of a catfolk operation, but all the rest of Meikalani's clerks are catfolk, as is Merta's replacement, so they don't really have anything to complain about.

No one is angry at me or Lin. There might have been deliberate sabotage of the sluice gates and fire control, but nothing a frogold could have done."

Merta relaxes in her sleep.

"...Are the missing catfolk okay though? It sounded like they weren't.

And - yeah, having some metal will be nice, I'll give you 34 for it from the turbine money..."

She glances at Merta. (Still asleep.)

"They haven't been found. At this point they're either fine or dead. The Magistrate was merciful to all the rest of the gang, for unclear reasons, but it looks like they didn't murder anyone... or they murdered people who the Magistrate thought deserved it."

She hands him the copper rod.

"Would you like Merta to make you a house outside of town? Once she's healed, or we can ask a friend. If she wraps her feet and head, and you take a wiggly route, she won't know where she's making the house."

He squints suspiciously.

"...Why are you... Helping me run away?"

"So, I want you to be safe and grow up to do things you like to do. If you're going to sneak out, I want you to have a safe place to go to so you don't die.

But that's not really running away? If you're coming back the next cycle, you're just getting some private time. Lots of people do that.

I already said that if you want to leave Kef, I'll leave with you. It would be unpleasant and I don't want to. I will, but I would like to help you be happy in Kef. And I think giving you a safe place that's yours will make you less likely to want to leave."

"...I brought food and water and the fireplates." Which he brings out from under the patchwork coat and presents to Calsa. "Yeah, I do want that. Later though. I miss my old home a little bit. Even though I'm never going back. I still think it was a good idea to leave. Mostly I want to get more magic so I can choose more, which means trying really hard at everything."

"That's good." She fills the fireplates. "Yeah. I miss Argolake too sometimes.

How about we sew a long money pocket on your pants? Do you know how to sew? Would learning give you more...blue?"

"I don't! And yeah! It's also a making-things thing, so also black? I don't get more magic very often. Five a year would be fast and I got one earlier."

"If trying hard gets you magic, does it help to have even harder things to try? Like sewing, but only using your feet? Do you want to learn how to design clothes to fit different shapes of people as they move around?"

She gets a large needle and a ball of orange yarn, and breaks off an arm's-length of yarn. "You start by tying the yarn to itself to make a small loop, and pull the rest most of the way through the loop, so it leaves a second loop. Can you see how to do that again, so that the second loop takes the place of the first, the new third loop is where the second loop is now, and the first loop is off to the side not doing anything? I can show you, but does it help you grow your magic more to figure it out yourself? We'll do that one more time, and then stitch around the edge in circles to make a tight round piece, and then sew on more yarn to make a thin tube."

"I don't know if it does. People say all sorts of things about what grows magic, but figuring things out is probably one..."

He pays close attention.

"It's kind of like rope knots, isn't it? Not tying it off but adding more loops..."

By analogizing to knots, which are a manly woodsman skill (apparently), he tries to figure out what to do...

"It's about how the parts press against each other when you pull tight. Crossing over or under or not... I think..."

"Mm-hm." She takes the yarn back and demonstrates a few more stitches. "Try now?"

The first couple of rows have more stitches in them than the previous rows, and then the tube goes up, with the same number of stitches in each row.  Calsa tears off more pieces of yarn as needed.

"The fabric of your pants is so nice, I don't want to poke holes in it to sew with yarn, and I don't have any fine thread. But a pocket like this needs to be connected by many strands so a thief can't just cut the whole pocket off. We can put the holes near the edge, at least..."

"There's plenty of yarn left, how about you make yourself a hat? If you put the new loop through more of the old loops at once, the fabric will be thicker."

He follows along, slowly and somewhat clumsily.

"It's nice, yeah. It's fuwanna* ummm plant hairs from a cloud plant, it makes fluffy hairs not fruits, and they get sewn on a [loom]. A big wooden thing that makes big blankets out of plant hairs. I think you have to clean them and make thread first. I don't know how and I don't have the plants anyway... I should have brought ropes and seeds with me! I'll try a hat first before poking holes in my pants. You can make socks like this too. How much does the yarn cost?"

*Cotton

"Ah! Ansaf has plants like that too, for making thread, and light fabric like yours, which is more common in hotter places. A big thing with a small part that you move back and forth between your hands? That's a loom.

I made this yarn myself from my fur and some of Merta's. Another ball of yarn this size would be maybe eight money-of-Kef, but just the fur is more like four. I can show you how to spin - how to make yarn from loose fur!"

She gets a stone drop spindle and takes a handful of loose fur from a niche in the inside wall of the huddlebed at the end where she and Merta sleep. "You start twisting it by hand until you have enough to start winding it onto the long part. Can you figure out the rest? Hmm, maybe before using the drop spindle, I'll just twist it in my hands while you practice feeding me just the right amount of loose fur...

This fur is all mine. Mixing in a bit of Merta's is harder, since werewolf fur doesn't spin as well. You can try that later! Or if you want, you could make something thick and padded with sewn fabric on the inside and outside, stuffed with Merta's fur and Siki's and your own in between."

"...It seems kind of weird to use people fur. Oh well. I wonder if I could make fur grow faster? I can do that with plants, make them be food right now, but it hurts them. Kind of like the healing, if you don't have enough food and water in you. And I will definitely learn spinning too."

"Instead of animal fur? Ew. It makes sense if that's all you have, I guess.

If you eat and drink extra is it okay? Could you make a creature grow longer fur than usual, or does it just grow faster and fall out more often? Like could a mouseling grow usable fur?" Or a natural mouse, since if it gets cancer you're going to eat it anyway, but that idea would upset him. "Or make a werewolf's softer hairs grow longer, without the rough guard hairs growing any extra?"

"Animals don't really count, it's not a bad thing to take animal fur or meat or skin or anything. They're not very smart. You have to be nice, but they're just animals. People are different. And some are bred to grow lots and lots of fur. We had lots of animals around and only Kaleid as people... Um, it should be possible. I remember hearing about green magusi making people grow whole extra parts to put in someone else, and the grower was fine as long as they ate a lot and got checkups... You can definitely also make fur not fall out as much. Mom sold that to people sometimes. Maybe I should try it on my mice, but long fur might bother them too."

(He is still sewing haltingly, getting used to the pattern.) "I should start from the top of the hat and get bigger as I sew, right?"

"Animals are dirty! I guess you could keep them in a clean area and wash them before taking the fur...

If it's important to your - dignity or whatever...  if you don't want to use any of your fur, for any reason, that's fine, you don't have to.

Wow! How do you put the extra parts into the people who are getting them, without frogolds? What kind of parts?

Yeah, start at the top. Don't worry about the exact size until you get down to your forehead or so... if your ears stuck up like mine you'd want to have enough room to move them around comfortably."

"I don't really care that much about my fur. It just feels weird to wear it. And I don't have as much as you or Merta. You give them a potion that makes them fall asleep and cut them open carefully in a really clean room, and then take the bad part out and put the good part in, use Green magic to make the good part theirs, use Green magic to close them again. My mom's mom had to do it and told me all about it. Um... Belly parts? That do... Blood cleaning? Most people have two..."

"Cool!

I don't know what that organ is called but it sounds familiar.

How do you know that kaleids are the only kind of people in your world? Here, there's a kind of animal like a mouse that lives in trees that can communicate a bit, but it's not people. Using human magic on it made a totally different kind of baby" - for some reason it couldn't breathe so it didn't start a new species of people, not saying that - "which shows that the original animal wasn't a person."

"...I guess I don't know. I didn't see things much, I just heard gossip a lot. Gossip is not very smart. Some animals are pretty smart but Kaleids don't call them people. And there's stories about magic animals, who are sometimes people, but that's stories. They're probably made up."

"Can enough green make an animal into a person? Can you give someone permanent magic abilities?"

"I've heard of that happening but really crazy kinds of magic like portals or people animals or going to another planet are usually from burning magic."

"Oh well."

"Ladies, welcome to Kef.

Your business here is complicated, and requires delicacy. If you think you can't handle that, please enjoy your stipend far away from anything that risks causing an incident.

We have discovered one species worth exploring here, and only one individual. A person. He physically resembles a human and calls himself a kaleid. You don't need to know about his abilities, origin, relationship to others of his kind, or the reason for his humanlike appearance. Just that this is an immense opportunity for Kef, Sota, the Allheart Alliance, and all the people of Ansaf.

He is a child. Bear in mind how catfolk and werewolves regard children, the need to protect their ignorance of adult matters. He has been told that human magic requires touch and that humans are secretive about the exact process, insisting that they be hidden while they reach a hand through a hole in the wall. You must maintain this story until he is old enough that the populace of Kef will tolerate him knowing the other details.

He has already shown discomfort with the idea of children, even if he has no connection or responsibility for them. Do not pressure him. If you think you can trick him into touching you long enough to covertly breed from him, consult me or the frogold child living with him. If you make an attempt without our approval and you are caught, I will condemn you for rape, as the populace will demand.

This is a long project. I have arranged jobs for you around town. Do not deliberately seek out your target, whose name and location I am not telling you. This is not a competition. If one of you bears a kaleid child, all of you may copy from it. It serves my goals perfectly well for you to remain in reserve here for years. There is no rush. You will probably not be the one to breed from him directly. That is fine.

Those of you who are children have a special role: if he is drawn to people resembling himself, you may befriend him, and allow yourself to be pursued, when you have both grown to an age where that is appropriate. Do not try to seduce him. Spooking him jeopardizes the potential future of Ansaf.

For reasons which I will not disclose, it is important that his existence stay secret for a few years, as you have already agreed to. While I cannot prevent you from leaving, if you do, my agents will be closely monitoring you for any attempt at breaking your word."