Xas had gone back to poking at a vine almost immediately - more because the vine is threaded with veins of curiously bright orange than because he has much of an instinct for looking natural in these sorts of situations, and what is he going to do with five shekels, anyway? - but he stops when the second boy appears. Whatever disinclination he had to get involved evaporates once he sees how comparatively large he is.

"If you're looking for a boy half your size," he says disapprovingly, waving a hand down the path, "he went that way."