The stone niche was upholstered with dried grass and scraps of fabric and spirals of giftbox ribbons and a squeaking, writhing mass of indiscriminate flesh.

Seph's spine and shoulders chilled instantly; his hands flew back from the curtain that had covered the niche, and he leaped backward, stammering, "What — what —?"

Even as he watched, a small, small hand unfurled from the mass, groping weakly at the stone niche; then, a large thorn poked out, or rather, half a dozen large, stone-colored thorns mounted on flesh the color of bruised black plums. The thorns split at their centers and began bobbing up and down, stabbing the air, screaming.

"Squabs," Boula murmured beside him, and she reached out cautiously toward one of them; as soon as she came within range, one of the beaks (they were beaks, Seph realized, feeling a little stupid) lunged and clasped around the point of her hoof, quickly releasing and crying out in dismay at the hardness of it.

"They're starving," the ungu girl said, withdrawing with her brows furrowed. She looked around. "What happened here?"

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