“You’ll walk into a material accident that’ll stir your quills, master,” the poet growled, “though you do think yourself a sort of superior being going about among ordinary people. You’ll walk into the wood where they pick up horns⁠ ⁠… clever though you may be!”

The altercation subsided as swiftly as it had risen.

“I didn’t want to lose sight of you,” said Wolf, “because our ways divide in a minute. I wish you’d won that match, Valley, instead of Monk. I can’t tell why, but there was something about Monk that annoyed me this afternoon. Perhaps servants are always annoying when they’re neither one thing nor the other.”

“I hope you didn’t bring me into your quarrel,” said Jason Otter.