... What Mishibijw told us was that the god was holding souls in its mouth. Many of them.

[They hadn't had the chance to find out how many. But there's hope there, even in the jaws of death.]

I don't think it's taking the food, right now.

[It's perhaps grasping at straws, but coupled together with what Talcott has told them -- there's something there, he thinks.]