Page 207 of Phoenix's Fire

He grumbled, but seemed to accept that. "Rymar, find another chair, since I get the impression you're staying."

"I'm curious about what's going on," I admitted as I found a wooden chair and brought it over beside Ayla. "So, what is this about, Jerlis?" Because I didn't want Ayla spilling everything and causing problems Jerlis might not know about.

The man turned his eerily black eyes on Ayla. "I heard you're trying to gather the names of every tailless woman missing from Lorsa?"

She clenched her hands in her lap, but nodded. "I am. I think some of them, if not all, may have been kidnapped by the Moles the way your sister was. If that's the case, I'm hoping I can get a message inside the compound, to my friend Callah. She might be able to find more children like Tobias - your nephew."

Beside her, Saveah leaned back and crossed her arms. "Ourrelatives aren't the only ones who've been taken. I'm sure others would like- "

Jerlis lifted a hand, pausing her. "Clearly, the determination is a family trait." Then he pointedly looked between the women. "And the family resemblance is strong."

"I think the same could be said for your nephew," Ayla told him.

Which made Jerlis lift a brow. "He's tailless, Ayla."

"Yes, but also huge." Then she tilted her head, looking hard at the mayor's face. "It's hard to tell with the coloration differences and the lack of weight, but I think Tobias's face is similar to yours as well."

"I'm not that overweight!" Jerlis huffed.

"Moles aren't fed well," I reminded him. "She means your nephew is thin."

"Oh."

And Saveah leaned closer to Ayla. "Calling someone fat is considered rude."

"What?" Ayla gasped. "Why? It just means they have a life of plenty! Of privilege! I'd love to be fat - and old!"

I was biting my lips together, struggling not to chuckle. Sometimes, her naivety was too cute. Ayla had come so far, and yet there were going to be a lot of moments like this. Times when the things she thought she understood came out to be from such a vastly different perspective it made me - and probably everyone else - reevaluate our own biases.

"I've never seen a fat person," Ayla mumbled. "I'm not sure what it would look like."

So Jerlis patted his ample belly. "About like this. I sit at this desk too much."

"Oh." She nodded almost excitedly. "Okay. Thank you."

Which made Jerlis cast me a confused look. All I could do was try to shrug without being too noticeable. It was Saveah who got us all back on the right subject.

"So why did you want to see us?" she asked.

"Right," Jerlis said. "Missing women." Then he pulled open a drawer on the side of his desk and set a folder before him. "Twenty-eight years ago, Moles began carrying away tailless women and all the tailed, they killed. For years, we assumed they were simply lost. We didn't understand that they were harvesting the bodies for the first few years of the attacks. Then, we thought some tailless were taken by mistake in the confusion."

"But only women?" Ayla asked.

Jerlis grumbled at that. "So many were killed. So many bodies were just gone. Since we don't divide our people by tailed and tailless, and each family grieved their own losses, we didn't realize it was only tailless women for much too long."

"Then it was only a rumor," I explained. "What we call a conspiracy theory."

"No one has seen a woman taken," Jerlis explained. "Often, women with tailed kids - who were also taken - were the ones missing, so it was assumed they gave chase and were killed in the woods and consumed by the wildlife."

"Oh." Ayla nodded to show she understood.

"Until you," Jerlis went on, "we weren't sure. We've known they were butchering our dead for a while, because they used to do it in the woods. Once, we caught them and attacked."

"When Drozel lost his tail," I explained.

Which made Ayla gasp, pressing a hand over her mouth. "Oh. That makes that story so different."

"Which story?" Saveah asked.