“Five,” Mari replied, with distinct maternal pride that sounded plenty farmerish to Fawn, for all she suspected Mari would deny any such thing.

A rap on the door was followed by Dag’s plaintive voice: “Mari, can I please come back in now?”

Mari rolled her eyes. “All right.”

Dag eased himself around the door. “How is she doing? Is she healing at all? Could you match grounds? Or do a little reinforcement, even?”

“She’s healing as well as could be expected. I did nothing with my ground, because time and rest will do the job every bit as well.”

Dag took this in, seeming a bit disappointed, but resigned. “I have you a room, Spark, down one floor. Tired?”

Exhausted, she realized. She nodded.

“Well, I’ll take you down and you can start in on the resting part, leastways.”

Mari rubbed her lips and studied her nephew through narrowed eyes. Groundsense. Fawn wondered what the patrol leader had seen with hers that she wasn’t saying. Did closed mouths run in the Redwing family like golden eyes? Fawn rolled up her bedroll and let Dag shoo her out.

“Don’t let Mari scare you,” Dag said, letting his left arm drift along at her back, whether protectively or for subtle concealment Fawn could not tell, as they descended the stairs. They turned into the adjoining corridor.

“She didn’t, much. I liked her.” Fawn took a breath. Some secrets took up too much space to keep tiptoeing around. “She told me a little more about your wife, and Wolf Ridge. She thought I needed to know.”

Silence stretched for three long footfalls. “She’s right.”

And that, evidently, was all Fawn was going to get for now.

Fawn’s new room was narrow like Mari’s, except this one overlooked the main street instead of the stable yard. A washstand with ewer already filled, piecework curtains and a quilt in a matching pattern, and rag rugs on the floor made it fine and homey to Fawn’s eyes. A door in the side wall apparently led into the next chamber. Dag swung the bar across and shoved it down into its brackets.

“Where is your room?” Fawn asked.

Dag gestured at the closed door. “Through there.”

“Oh, good. Will you take a rest? Don’t tell me you aren’t owed some healing too. I saw your bruises.”

He shook his head. “I’m going out to find a harnessmaker. I’ll come back and take you down to dinner later, if you’d like.”

“I’d like that fine.”

He smiled a little at that and backed himself out. “Seems all I do in this place is tell folks to go to sleep.”

“Yes, but I’m actually going to do it.”

He grinned—that grin should be illegal—and shut the door softly.