Mari’s arguments were not, any of them, wrong, exactly. Or at all, Dag admitted glumly to himself. Ashamed, he dutifully set his mind to the upholding of a self-restraint that had once been more routine than breathing…which had somehow grown as heavy as a stone cairn upon his chest. Dead men don’t need air, eh?

At dinner that night he behaved toward Fawn with meticulous courtesy, no more. Her eyes watched him curiously, wary. But there were enough other patrollers at the table for her to pelt with her questions, tonight mostly about how patrol patterns were arranged and walked, that his silence passed unremarked.

Never had rectitude seemed less rewarding.

The next day was officially devoted to rest and the preparations for the bow-down, and Dag allowed himself to be made mule to help carry in supplies from uptown gathered by the more eager. He crossed paths with Mari only long enough to volunteer for evening watch and door duty, and be briskly refused.

“I can’t put the patroller who slew the malice onto guard duty during the celebration of his own deed,” she said shortly. “I’d have a revolt on my hands—and rightly, too.” She added after a reluctant moment, stopping his protest, “Make sure that little farmer girl knows she’s invited, too.”

Shortly after, he ran into the enthusiast from Log Hollow who was nabbing the volunteer musicians from the combined patrols for practice, a novelty in the experience of most involved, and did not escape till almost time to collect Fawn.

Fawn peered at her hair in the shaving mirror and decided that the green ribbons, loaned by Reela of the broken leg, matched her good dress very well. Reela had been teaching her how to do Lakewalker hair braids, which had turned out to have various meanings; the knot at the nape, Fawn had found out, was a sign of mourning, except when it was a prudent arrangement for going into a fight. Knowing this made the mob of patrollers look different to Fawn’s eyes, and gave her a strange feeling, as though the world had shifted under her feet, if only a little, and could never shift back. In any case she could be certain that tonight’s style, with her hair tied up high on the back of her head by a jaunty bow and allowed to swing like a horsetail, curls bouncing, didn’t say anything she didn’t intend in patroller.