Following his brief liaison with Komal, Will largely sat and observed with her sitting on his left thigh as Shinsha's people took the monster corpses he had provided away for processing. Not everyone who dropped by was sent by her, but unless they came looking for trouble, he passed out portions of tender jerky, rice, and cornmeal.
In the process of Will handing out food, the seventeen children who had been making string and weaving baskets in the overcrowded hostel emerged to see what all the fuss was about, but only long enough for him to hand each of them sweets or jerky of their own. There was a chance that one of the people or groups that dropped by could take one of them hostage, as a form of leverage, so Komal warned all but a few of the older children to stay inside—out of sight, out of mind.
