My mind starts to race with panic.

   He knows. He knows, he knows, he knows. Salt knows that I am not a robot. My heart rate increases so much my mind can feel it beating.

  Salt steps back, and he nearly tumbles over. "You are not robot." He repeats, but it sounds like he's telling himself. He backs away until he hits a table, and I hear a glass bottle of something smash. He shakes his head at me. "You're not a robot."

   I put my hands out in a calming gesture. I walk forward enough to make sure that I'm blocking the door. "No, I'm not. You're right. But that doesn't mean anything."

   "You lied, and if you lie, that means you're covering something." He runs the burned hand through his hair. I can see the flesh has fallen off, and the metal glints in the light. Strands of his blue hair fall from his touch. "If you're covering something, than you mean to harm us. You mean to harm me. Because you are not a robot!"

   "I don't want to hurt any of you!" I explain hurriedly, and I can see he's going to become frantic. "And neither do any of the boys. That's not why I lied. I lied because I need help. Help to get back up to the city from where I came."

  Salt drops his hand then, and uses it to brace himself against the table. He gives me a look. "What? Why would you want to go back up-top?"

    "My family is up there. They're being tortured for answers they don't have as we speak. As bad as you think the cages are, what they're going through is worse. They feel pain, and their captors with exploit that ability as much as they can."

   Salt's arm give in, and he drops from his brace on the table. He falls to the stone ground, and I realize that they also cheaped out on the floor of his living quarters, too. He bangs the back of his head against the table.

    "Don't do this. It's cruel. Please, don't." He says to me, and then squeezes his eyes shut.

   I'm not doing anything to him.

     "Cruel? What are you talking about?" I ask, and step forward. 

  Salt looks at me like he doesn't trust me. I notice the glare, and it stabs me. "Guilt. Playing on emotions that robots weren't even supposed to have until years ago is cruel. Don't exploit my empathy, or it might just disappear."

  I crouch down so that I don't look so foreboding. "I'm not trying to, I swear. I'm not a robot. So what? I don't intend to hurt anyone. There isn't a problem."

    Salt suddenly looks at me like I don't get it. He furrows his brows, which makes the gash on his forehead bend, like he can't believe that I don't get whatever he's thinking.

    "Not a problem?" He repeats. "I--How--Of course there's a problem. How could you not calculate that there's a problem!?"

  So that's what they call thinking. Calculating. I add it to memory.

  "Okay, what's the issue, then? Tell me."

     Salt closes his eyes and banging his head back against the table. "The Queen is the ruler. She doesn't tolerate anything that isn't kind. That includes lying. You're going to get put in a cage." He says, and subconsciously cups one hand with the other, rubbing his fingers over the metal that must act as bones. 

   "That's it?" I try not to sound insensitive. "That's the problem? I'm going to get punished?" I'm relieved. "If you think a cage is bad, you should try living with two older brothers."

  Salt heaves a laugh, and doesn't open his eyes. "We don't have families here. Just one. Or two, if they decide to be wed. But then, eventually they die. But since you've got a family, I don't know how you can be so happy about being thrown into a cage. Not only will you see your friend's holograms, but also your kin. That's bad, right?"

     He sounds like he's genuinely asking, so I nod. "Yeah, it is."

    "Exactly." Salt rubs his face with almost tire. "The guilt I would feel should you be dragged off to the cages with seeing family there is insurmountable. From what I understand, having a family means people that love you. It'll be worse than any pain, I'm pretty positive."

   I can't believe that's the problem.

  This robot, this machine, is so worried that because I'm human and by default have kin that care about, I'll be so affected by holograms of their bodies? I've seen Sammy's body fall to the ground. And dad's. It won't affect me.

    I'm stronger than that.

  Salt sighs. "You are not a robot." He repeats again.

    "I am not a robot." I confirm, thinking that maybe he'll stop trying to confirm it himself.

      He sighs again. "This is one hell of a secret to keep from the Queen. Should she find out, she'll throw you in a cage faster than you can say Ivy."

   "Then don't tell her." I say. It can't be that hard for a machine to keep a secret, can it? Like a computer keeping a password. Not that difficult.

  Salt stands up, and I hear the whine of his metal frame with the effort. I stand up with him to make sure that he doesn't loom over me. "My hair is already falling out." He says. "I could really do with a little less stress."

    "Oh, couldn't we all." 

      He glances at me like he expects my hair to be falling out, too. When he's sure that it's not, he glances down at me. He makes a mm-hmm. face, like I have no right to be talking.

 "I hate you." He tells me.

   "Yeah, I guessed so much." I wait a moment. "So, are we officially unlikely friends now?"

 Salt takes a cigarette from his back pocket. He lights it in the same unusual way I've only seen him do. He takes a drag. Places it between his teeth to free his left hand. He stretches it out. "Okay. Deal."

   I have to use my left to shake, and I add it to memory that robots can have alternate sides they prefer to use. Salt is left handed, but that might only be another fault.

    "Deal." I say, and smile.

 He seems to only barely manage a smile back.

* * *

I smell dinner walk past the hallway. It rouses me from a power nap on the stone floor of Salt's quarters, and I sit up straight. I pick up the jacket I'd used as a pillow, shrugging it back on to my shoulders. 

   "Salt?" I call out to the room. I stand to look for him. "Salt."

    He's reading a book. He's sitting on a clear space of a table, looking down at a leather-bound book. He's near the end of it, and I can count the pages he has left. He glances up at me with a glare for pausing his reading.

   "I'm starving. I think they're bringing the food to the room the boys are still in." I open the door, and the smell gets heavier. "I'll see you later."

    He smiles with half of his mouth. "See you later." I guess it's another phrase he hasn't heard of.

 I run in the hallway, following the smell with my nose in the air like one of those cartoon characters. I can't stumble through the double doors the room the boys are in fast enough.

  The food looks delicious.

    I lean against the door, closing it behind me to trap the smell in. They all look up from their respective metal trays of the dish. They're all glares.

   "What?" I ask, and find my tray on the chair where I had been sitting. At least none of them have taken it. "Why are you all looking at me like that?"

 I take a mouthful of the beef, and the soft texture it welcomed. The taste isn't dry, and it's cooked well. I wouldn't mind if it was raw, though. It's all I can do not to sigh out loud from finally getting fed.

    "You still seem hungry." Orion says, he scoops beef into his mouth. "Strange, considering you went off to get food an hour ago."

  I remember my conversations with Salt. "Oh, yeah. I got distracted. Ran in to Salt; next thing I know, my stomach is growling, he knows I'm not a robot, and I have to convince him not to tell the Queen otherwise she'll toss us into the infamous cages."

   And yet they all still stare at me.

     I notice that they're already mostly through their meals, and I wonder how long it took for the smell of them to drag me out of sleep. Mine isn't cold, so maybe they're just all hungrier than I am. I don't think that's possible.

  Orion pushes his tray off his lap, putting it onto the next available chair. He stands, and he lifts his bow from his back. He places it in his left hand, holding the string close to the inside of his forearm to keep it steady.

    He heads towards the blue curtains. He doesn't even lift a hand before they both fly open, shedding sun light into the room. And a breeze.

  Shutters. Robots still use shutters instead of glass. It's a small window in comparison to the drapes that are used to hide it, and I wonder why they'd chose to use electric lights in the rooms, especially in daytime.

   Orion kicks the shutters open, and jumps easily onto the ledge of them. He crouches for a moment, and the springs off.

  I nearly choke on my food in my shock.

   I have to swallow it again to keep it down.

 The others don't look nearly as phased as I am. "What the hell is wrong you?" I say to them, ditching my food in my place as I rise. I head over to the window. "Did you all have some kind of suicide pact while I was gone? You all going to pull your weapons out and slit your throats now, huh?"

    But from the window, I see nothing.

    Nothing but the thatched huts surrounding the castle, and it's a straight drop from the window to the ground. We're not that high up, but the only thing that you would land on it you jumped from here, was a stall with a blazing fire cooking meat.

   Directly below us. Great.

   I turn back in to the room. "Care to explain why you're all so unusually calm about this? I mean, Jesus--Orion just threw himself out the damn window!"

 "Calm down." Eli says between a mouthful of food. He takes Orion's tray, scooping the remaining food from his plate onto his own. "He probably just went to shoot some birds outside the city or something."

  "Out the window!?" I gesture to it wildly.

   "How else do expect him to get out of a castle full of do-gooders without them asking why he looks so pissed while carrying a weapon?" Eli raises his eye brows, biting into a big lump of beef.

   I sigh so low it turns into a growl. "And why, may I ask, is he pissed off? It's not because I insulted his male testorsterone's, is it? Because that's just petty."

   Eli laughs. "No. But you know, he's not the only one that's pretty annoyed with you." He gives up with the fork, reaching towards his thigh and taking out one of his throwing knives. He eats right off the blade. "As much as we'd all like to go off and get laid by some sexy robot, not all of us have a little self-control as you do."

   My jaw drops. "I wasn't getting laid! I really was going to get food!"

    "Thanks for being so nice and honest about it." Eli says. "It really helps."

   "Oh, piss off." I tell him, and he laughs. I look to Barron and Terra. "And what of you? You think I go off sleeping with the first attractive male I see, too?"

    "Not at all." Barron says. "Still. You're the one with the gun, so I'm not saying anything."

   "I'm not saying either." Terra says.

   I nod. I gesture to them both, looking towards Eli. "See? Why don't you take notes from them? They're at least civil!"

  Eli makes a face at me through his mouthful of beef. I make one of the same right back at him.

   Then we both hear a cat meow. It's long, small, and it sounds squeaky. I turn around.

 Orion is crouches on the window ledge again, with his bow and quiver over his back. He's holding a white cat in his arms. It's left leg is red with what looks like blood, and Orion holds the cat close ot keep it safe.

  I step back in quite shock to let them jump inside.

    The cat whines again, crying. It tries to claw as Orion's neck, but he doesn't flinch. Even when I see the marks draw blood. He looks to the chair he'd been sitting on, and I notice that his coat hangs over the arm.

  He looks normal in the dress shirt and waistcoat without it, but I give myself reason to not notice it on terms of hungry, and seeing him jump from a window just moments after I saw him.

  "Get met that, will you?" He asks me, I rush over, pick the coat up, and hold it out to him.

    It's a tricky manoeuvre when the cat is clawing around, but Orion manages to cup the cat in  his coat. He holds the feline back against himself, and the coat constrains its movements so it's forced in to being healed.

  It still struggles, though, whining. 

  "Shh," Orion soothes it, leaning back against the ledge of the window in such a careless way that it makes me flinch. "You foolish animal. Of all the things in the world to fear, I am not one of them."

  For some reason, it's like the cat actually hears him. It stops struggling. But it's pupils are dilating a blue iris so much that they look like the dark side of the moon. It's still scared.

   So Orion starts singing to it. It's the first time I've heard his voice on its own when not in show, and the low tones suit lullabies more than anything. When I sit back in my chair, its all I can do to not fall asleep in my food.

   Fly away,

  Fly far away.

  Come with me,

  Come along with me!

  When the world is poor,

  And we are no more,

  Fly away with me,

  Fly all the way home.

When that verse is done, he just starts to hum it. And then when he's done humming, he goes back to singing.

    But fascinatingly, it actually works. The cat calms down. It actually starts to blink, slowly, as if it's feel drowsy. When I glance at Orion, he makes a face as if I should have expected more of him if this is a surprise.

  "What should I call--" Orion makes his coat drop to the floor so he can see between the cat's legs. "Her. What should I call her?"

   I'm about to ask why on earth he took the coat away when he hadn't even spoke the spell, but I stop. The lullaby. That was the spell.

  Orion said he'd enchanted the coat, and of course, knowing him, it's be with the power to heal any wound that isn't fatal as long as you spoke or sang words in Arabic or English.

  I give kudos to Orion for being fantastically eccentric. 

     "Call it Flea." Barron suggests helpfully.

     "No." Eli waves the hand with the knife around, and he wipes the remained of his dinner along his tongue. "Call her Elizabeth."

  I raise an eyebrow at him.

   "Name of this catty-mean girlfriend I once had." He explains, and I roll my eyes.

   "How about after where you found her?" I provide, looking to Orion.

    Orion glances down at the while fur ball in his arms. "She was chasing the same squirrel I was just outside the city. She jumped for it just as I released an arrow, and she took the blow to her leg. It was in a meadow. I don't know how quickly I ran or how far, but it was underneath a willow tree."

   A willow tree? I didn't see any anywhere close by when we got inside the castle. He must run fast when he's pissed off.

  "Well, how about Willow, then?" I suggest.

    Orion glances at the paintwork on the legs of the furniture. "Too close to Ivy."

  "I still think you should call it Flea." Barron says again.

   "I'm not gonna call her Flea!" Orion gives him a glare. "Come on; Eli--You've named a kid before. Surely you can name a cat."

   His bemused smile drops suddenly. Eli chews the rest of his food like there's a bad taste in his mouth.

  Orion catches himself. "Sorry." He says, and turns back to me. It's a wise thing to do, because I'm sure Eli is trying not to cry out of the corner of my eye. "Aaran. Ideas?"

   "You could call her Brownsea." Terra says from the corner. "After the island we dropped on to."

 Orion grabs the cat's behind, lifting it high into the air. "Does this look brown to you?" He asks.

  "How about Meadow?" I say, and Orion lowers the cat and turns to me. "You said you found her in one. And she could be a meadow covered in snow, relating to her white fur. Maybe with a deer?"

    Orion catches that last part, and I see it ring bells in his head. He looks at me, and I know that he's aware that I gazed at his bow. For a long time. He looks away like he's trying to hide a humbled smile.

    "Good." Barron says. "We've got a name for the feline. Great. I'm so glad we could resolve this issue." He gives up with the fork, picking up the lump of beef and tearing it apart with his hands. He looks at the cat like he wishes he could cook it and eat it, too.

    "I'm going to call her Mellow. Oxymoron's always bring me back to thinking about my present company by recollection of the last word, anyway." Orion lifts the cat higher into the air, and places it onto the shoulder that doesn't carry his quiver. The cat sits on him like it's totally comfortable.

 I sneer at him for calling us all morons. He sneers back, and the cat accompanies him with a hiss.

     Terra gets up to place his tray on to the only table on the room. The smeared gravy on his plate looks out of place on a marble table top, next to a glass vase of petunia flowers.

  He rips one of the petals off, and swirls it around in the remainder of his gravy. "I thought they said there'd be a feast. No offence, but sitting in a room with you lot is no feast to me." He layers the gravy on, and then holds out the petal towards Orion.

   Orion makes a face at the offering. Then the cat meows, and he understands that the flower with meat gravy atop it isn't for him. He takes it in his palm, holding his hand close to the cat. It licks away greedily.

    "Maybe something went wrong." I suggest, and place my tray on top of Terra's. "I mean, our arrival wasn't expected. We could have come at a bad time."

    Eli isn't at well manner as Terra, and his first instinct is to start licking his plate. I drag the plate and the tray away for him before he could get to it. He makes a sad face, tongue still poking out, before speaking.

      "There's only one way to find out, isn't there? Unless you can go to your robot-boyfriend and ask him."

   I ignore his last comment. "These halls are marble. You can't hear anyone coming around corners, because I don't think their steps make any noise."

   Hell, I don't even know if they have guards patrolling. Or whether we are expected to stay here, and exactly how much trouble we'd be in should we be caught.

      "I'm the hunter, I'll go." Orion says, and he leans towards the table with the petunias to let Mellow jump off. The cat sniffs the flowers for a moment, and then catches the scent of more gravy. It gets its' chin dirty from licking the plate so thoroughly.

   "My gun has a silencer if somebody comes at us close-range." I remember then that I don't have it on me, and spin around searching for it. When I turn back, Barron's holding it by the strap so it's swinging in the air. I take it from him.

     Orion puts his palm on the cat's head as he passes it, and it starts to pur. It looks sad that he walked away. "Alright. Let's go see what shenanigans this place has got going on."

    He opens one of the doors with a flourish. "Milady." He says, and bows as I pass.

     I smile at him like I'm actually worthy of that title.

     "I hate you." He whispers when we're in the hallway. "You and your freaking inability