Whoever stood outside the bank had the patience to wait for Felicity to finish her first spoonful of stew. She would have been grateful for a second. The meat was salty, somebody had saved the dried herbs for an occasion like this, and her fingers had finally stopped shaking enough to get the spoon to her mouth.
Tommy sat on the front steps holding his bowl in two enormous hands. The little white rhino ears on top of his head turned toward the road. "If that's somebody looking to review the cooking, I'd like it on record that this is the best meal I've had since Tuesday."
"You tried chewing a battery yesterday," Kai reminded him. He tipped what remained in his bowl toward Felicity in case she wanted it. Victor started to answer for her, caught himself, and took a bite of bread instead. She accepted a little of the broth. It was worth doing just to see her husband trying to act like he'd meant to chew quite that thoughtfully.
The clink came again, and Tommy put his bowl down. Felicity could hear one pair of boots on the open road and quite a few bare feet moving behind the cars. She passed that information to Voss, who shifted to the foot of the steps to keep the side entrance in sight. Someone turned the lantern low behind them. When Victor walked out to meet the visitors, Felicity could still see the black tips of his feathers against the pale road.
A hawk came first, a tall man with gray feathers on his arms and a shopping bag stretched thin around three cans. Half a dozen rat beastmen followed him. They had full packs, knives at their waists and quick eyes that counted the bars across the bank windows before they bothered to count Snow Team. Until then Felicity had been willing to believe they'd come for dinner.
"Nice to see the bank open again," the hawk called. "We've been hunting this side of the road. I'd like to know what gives you boys the right to move in."
Victor pointed at the black stains out by the bus. "Anything you shot out there is still yours. If you're looking for help carrying the one with the burst stomach, my men had their turn this morning."
One of the rats laughed before he remembered whose side he was on. Felicity took another spoonful of stew and watched the others. The thin one by the curb rolled a can under the nearest wreck with the side of his foot. It made the same clink she'd heard before. His mate slipped into the alley while everybody's eyes went to the noise.
She touched the back of Voss's hand. "One's gone down the side. They keep rolling cans to cover his footsteps." His thumb brushed once across her knuckles. Then he signaled Kai, and a golden head disappeared around the other side of the steps. It was a pleasure to work with a man who knew the difference between taking her seriously and shouting about it to the fellow she was trying to catch.
The hawk had spotted her by then. "All this room, and you keep the pretty one right between your knees. Bit greedy when some of us haven't so much as seen a woman in days."
Rose was on the other side of the fire scraping the bottom of her bowl with a knife. At that she raised the knife high enough to catch the light. The hawk spared her one look and decided she could stay invisible. Felicity had a nasty feeling he picked the women he called pretty by how easy he thought they'd be to carry.
"Share her with the rest of us," the thin rat suggested. "Plenty of starving men out here."
Felicity put her bowl down on the step. "If you'd come here hungry, I'd have shared my dinner. I'm afraid you've talked yourself out of the only thing that was going spare."
Kai came back with a squirming rat held by the seat of his pants. The fellow had a bent screwdriver in his hand and fresh blackberry jam on one knee. Voss held him up for Victor to see. Felicity had been genuinely sad to lose that jam. Finding it on a would-be burglar improved its value considerably.
"Leave what you brought and take your men off this block," Victor told the hawk. "You tried my door and you made a grab for my wife. I'm willing to let you walk away from both mistakes once."
"Predators like that eat things like you," the hawk told Felicity. He spread his wings so the gray feathers cut her view of Victor in half. "You really think one of them will keep you when you quit being useful?"
Last week she'd have lain awake for hours over a line like that. Now she could see the thin rat's fingers closing on his knife behind the hawk's wing. She lifted her palm. He'd seen the scorch marks in the street, and the light crawling between her fingers was plenty bright enough for him to see too.
"You ought to ask your friend if he wants to find out how dangerous I am," she said. Her voice carried right across the steps. "He's the one who's going to hit the road teeth first when he pulls that knife."
He let it drop. Voss put a boot on it. For the first time the hawk looked past the bigger men directly at her hand. She kept the light as small as it had been when she'd healed Victor. She still had no idea if she could stop a man the way she'd stopped the animals in the park. By the look on the hawk's face, he didn't particularly want to settle it either.
The shopping bag hit the dirt. He took off, the rats scattered, and Kai gave his captive a push after them. Victor returned her bowl to her before the stew went cold. "Remind me to keep my hands off the last spoonful," he said, and kissed the top of her head.
Among the things the rats had set down was a half loaf wrapped in a kitchen towel. Three days after they took the bank, the first survivor to come asking for help recognized the green stripes on that towel. She had slept in a shop with nine other people, she told Felicity. The rats had taken their food. Now those people were outside the door, and two of them were small enough to hide behind her coat.