The Care and Feeding of Griffins by R. Lee Smith

during the hatching process) will bring back some small game and shred the entrails into chick-sized bites.  The stomach, liver, and intestines are always fed to the chick first, while Mama eats the meat of this first meal herself.  It would appear the chicks need something in the animal’s digestive track to set their own works in motion —
    Taryn wanted to scream with joy.  “Thank you!” she managed at last.  “Oh, thank you, Romany!  I can do this now!”
    “ How certain thee is.”
    “ But I can feed him now!”  Taryn made herself close the book, but she couldn’t stop hugging it, almost as tightly as she hugged Aisling.  “I know what I’m doing and it’ll be okay now!”
    Romany was studying her with a distinctly hurtful scrutiny.  It was not contempt she showed, exactly, as there was nothing deliberately unkind in her eyes, but all the same, Taryn knew the gypsy thought she was looking at a fool.  She didn’t have to say it, but she sure didn’t bother to hide it.
    “ What?” Taryn stammered, her excitement ebbing.
    “ Where will thee take him now, Romany wonders,” the gypsy said mildly.  Her dragons raised themselves in a sudden gust and blew out from her in a cloud.  Romany did not even blink her knowing eyes.  “Where will thee take him to feed him what thee now knows thee must?”
    “ Home, I guess.”
    “ Home is where for thee?”
    Taryn could feel herself blushing.  “It’s, um, an apartment down in Oregon.  It’ll do for now, though.  I mean—”
    “ Aye,” Romany said simply.  “For now.”
    Silence.  Taryn shifted on the steps of the library, looking down at Aisling when she could no longer meet the gypsy ’s eyes.  “I know it won’t be easy,” she said.  “I know it’ll take more than a book, but…”
    Romany said nothing.  Her dragons continued to circle and spin and sing in the air above her.
    Taryn made herself look away from the crown of her sleeping griffin.  “I’ve got to try,” she said.  “He’s a miracle.  I’d do anything.”
    “ Ah.”  The gypsy’s eyes, black and wet as ink, sought Taryn’s.  They showed no reflection.  “Would thee give him up?”
    Taryn shut her eyes against the pain that lanced through her.  She couldn ’t answer right away, but no amount of anguished debate could produce a different answer than that which had first come to her.  “No,” she said.  “If…If there was no other way to save him and someone else could, then maybe…but I would have to be sure that he would be all right and I don’t think I can be sure.  He’s a baby.  He’s just a baby.  How could I give him up to anyone?”
    “ And to keep him, to raise him rightly, what would thee give up?”
    Taryn shook her head, stepping away in confusion.  “I don’t know how to answer that.  Do you want money?”
    “ I want naught.  What would thee lose, to have him?”
    Taryn looked down into Aisling ’s sleeping face.  Her own crumpled.  “Anything,” she said, aching.
    “ Mean thee this generous boast?”  Romany’s voice was sharp.
    “ Yes.  I don’t have much, but…I’ll do whatever I have to do if you’ll help me.”
    “ I?  Nay, my help must be limited.  I cannot take him and I cannot take thee.  But I can render thee some small aids, aye, and that I will do if thee can only answer me.  How shall thee save him?”
    Taryn stared into the implacable face of the gypsy.  “What do you mean?”
    “ How shall thee save him?” Romany asked again, her voice hardening.  “If thee should raise him to mastery, how shall that save him?  How shall thee teach thy charge to hunt?  To fly?  Where shall he lair?  What shall be his territory?  What, his prey?  His mate?  Come, ‘tis a measure of shortest time to answer.  How shall thee save him?”
    “ I—”  Taryn fell helplessly silent.
    “ Thee cannot keep him.”  Romany’s face softened.  Her hand came out to brush lightly at Taryn’s