“No, but you are more…you are less…I could use another opinion.”

Mari glanced at Fawn. “Miss Bluefield, may I?”

“Please. I want to understand, and…and I don’t, really.”

Mari leaned over and picked up the bone knife. She cradled it, ran her hand along its smooth pale length, and finally, much as Dag had, held it to her lips with her eyes closed. When she set it down again, her mouth stayed tight for a moment.

“Well”—she took a breath—“it’s certainly primed.”

“That, I could tell,” said Dag.

“It feels…hm. Oddly pure. It’s not that souls go into the knives—you did explain that to her, yes?” she demanded of Dag.

“Yes. She’s clear on that part.”

“But different people’s heart’s knives do have different feels to them. Some echo of the donor lingers, though they all seem to work alike. Perhaps it’s that the lives are different, but the deaths are all the same, I don’t know. I’m a patroller, not a lore-master. I think”—she tapped her lips with a forefinger—“you had better take it to a maker. The most experienced you can find.”

“Miss Bluefield and I,” said Dag. “The knife is properly hers, now.”

“This isn’t any business for a farmer to be mixed up in.”

Dag scowled. “What would you have me do? Take it from her?

You?” “Explain, please?” Fawn said tightly. “Everyone is talking past me again. That’s all right mostly, I’m used to it, but not for this.”

“Show her your knives, Mari,” Dag said, a rasp of challenge in his voice, for all that it was soft.

She looked at him, then slowly unbuttoned her shirt partway down and drew out a dual knife pouch much like Dag’s, though of softer leather. She pulled the strap over her head, pushed the bedroll aside, and laid out two bone knives side by side on the quilt. They were nearly identical, except for different-colored dye daubed on the lightly carved hilts, red and brown this time.

“These are a true pair, both bones from the same donor,” she said, caressing the red one. “My youngest son, as it happens. It was his third year patrolling, up Sparford way, and I’d just got to thinking he was getting over the riskiest part of the learning…well.” She touched the brown one. “This one is primed. His father’s aunt Palai gave her death to it. Tough, tough old woman—absent gods, we loved her. Preferably from a safe distance, but there’s one like that in every family, I think.” Her hand drifted again to the red one. “This one is unprimed, bonded to me. I keep it by me in case.”

“So what would happen,” said Dag dryly, “to anyone who tried to take them from you?”