Well they want to eat Breakfast

A girl took Matt by the elbow and steered him toward the largest tent at the center of the camp, a long pavilion of oiled canvas the color of old bone. The grip was light, almost careful. She had red hair that faded to teal at the tips, a white streak through the front, and a scattering of freckles across her nose, and she smiled at him like he was a guest instead of a captive.

Inside, the tent was cool and dim and smelled of woodsmoke and crushed herbs. A low table ran along one side, and the Hunters were already gathered around it on cushions and folded blankets. No chairs, Matt noticed. No forks either. Just flatbread, and knives, and hands.

He was guided to a cushion near the head of the table. The girl dropped down beside him, close enough that her shoulder brushed his, folding her legs beneath her with an ease the others didn't have. Lithe, unhurried, like a body trained hard and then allowed to stay young.

She reached for the food before he could.

"Here," she said, and began pulling food toward him before he could reach for any of it himself. A platter of cold venison, sliced thin and dark. A clay bowl of black olives. Dried figs in a shallow basket. Wedges of pale cheese, a pot of honey with a wooden spoon standing in it, and rounds of coarse flatbread. The girl beside him poured watered wine into a cup and set it at his elbow.

"I made most of this," she said, tearing off a piece of bread and pressing it into his hand. "The bread, the venison. Wanted you to try it."

"You've been cooking for me?"

"Somebody had to." She said it like it was obvious, then watched him take the first bite, and something in her shoulders eased when he nodded. "Good. Eat. You're too thin. You've been on the road too long."

Around him, the Hunters began to eat too, quiet and gentle, tearing bread and passing bowls. Every few seconds one of them would slide something new toward him, an olive, a fig, a slice of cheese, until his hands were full and the girl beside him had begun to fuss in earnest, plucking the honey pot from across the table and drizzling some over his figs without asking.

"You don't have to do that," Matt said, as she reached across him for the honey pot again.

"I know." She did it anyway, tipping a little over his figs.

He watched her hands while she worked. They were quick and certain, with a faint white scar across one knuckle. She looked younger than the others, he noticed. Not by much, and not only in the face. The rest of them carried their centuries in how they stood, still as statues even when they weren't trying. She hadn't learned that yet. She crossed her ankles and shifted on the cushion, restless in a way none of the others were.

"You're the youngest," he said. Not a question.

"Nineteen," she agreed. "Been with the Hunt twelve years, though. Joined when I was seven, so I've been here longer than most of the ones who look older than me."

"Seven," Matt said. He knew what that meant. Demigods got found young, and most of them didn't have a goddess hunting nearby when it happened.

"Like I said. Wasn't really a choice." She nudged his knee with hers, light, and tore another piece of bread. "My half-brother was a demigod, from my mother's... well. You know how it goes."

Him, not her. She'd put the god in her brother and left herself out of it.

"Monsters found us when I was seven," she went on, quieter now. "Took him first. Then my parents, when they tried to fight for him. Ate them. Some of them." The bread stayed in her hand, untasted, and for a moment she wasn't looking at the table or at him, but somewhere a long way off. "I was the only one left. Seven years old, no god in me, nothing."

"Some mornings I still wake up missing them," she said, softer now. "Not often. But sometimes I'll smell bread and it's like I'm seven again, back in our kitchen, and my mother's at the fire and my brother's stealing the crusts before they cool." She looked down at the table, at the food she'd made with her own hands. "And I hate them, you know. The monsters. Properly hate them. Every one I put an arrow through, I'm thinking of that morning."

Then she shook herself, like a dog coming out of water, and the brightness came back, though it sat a little differently now that Matt could see what was under it.

"I only lived because Lady Artemis happened to be hunting nearby," she went on. "She could've left me. I was just a mortal kid with no godly. But she didn't. She brought me here, and the Hunt raised me, and that was that." She tore another piece of bread, dipped it in honey, and held it up to his mouth. "Now eat. You've got a long day ahead of you."

Matt took the bread, chewing while he watched her fuss with the honey pot, and it struck him that they'd been sitting here this whole time and he still had no idea what to call her.

"Wait," he said. "What's your name?"

She blinked, then laughed, a bright little burst that seemed to catch even her by surprise. "I forgot. Gods, I actually forgot. Been sitting here feeding you like we've known each other for years and never once said." She shook her head, grinning at her own scatterbrained mistake. "Kit. My name's Kit."

"Just Kit?" Matt asked raising an eyebrow.

She thought about it, chewing. "Had a surname once. Don't use it anymore."

"Why not?"

"When I joined the Hunt, I learned what they think of boys." She said it flatly, like a fact. "If one wanders into camp, Lady Artemis turns him into a jackalope. For fun. My brother was eleven when the monsters got him, and if he'd lived, he'd have just been one more boy they'd laugh at. Same for my father." She shrugged and tore off another corner of bread. "So I dropped it. Stopped using his surname and just kept the first name. Felt like it'd be disrespectful to him to keep dragging his name around a place that thinks men are a joke."

"Kit," Matt said, testing it.

"Just Kit." She gave his arm a light swat instead of the knee this time. "Now you know. Eat your breakfast."