She turned to hug him around the waist. “I’m glad it didn’t grab any higher,” she said seriously.

Dag choked a laugh. “Me too, Spark!”

They were on the straight road north by noon.

They rode slowly, in part for their dual disinclination for their destinations, but mostly because of the dog-breath humidity that had set in after the last rain. The horses plodded beneath a brassy sun. Their riders talked or fell silent with, it seemed to Dag, equal ease. They spent the next afternoon—rainy again—in the loft of the barn at the well-house where they’d first glimpsed each other, picnicking on farm fare and listening to the soothing sounds of the drops on the roof and the horses champing hay below, didn’t notice when the storm stopped, and lingered there overnight.

The next day was brighter and clearer, the hot white haze blown away east, and they reluctantly rode on. On the fifth night of the two-day ride they stopped a short leg from Lumpton Market to camp one last time. Fawn had figured an early start from Lumpton would bring them to West Blue before dark. It was hard for Dag to guess what would happen then, though her slowly unfolding tales of her family had at least given him a better sense of who he would encounter.

They found a campsite by a winding creek, out of view of the road, beneath a scattered stand of leatherpod trees. Later in the fall, the seed-pods would hang down beneath the big spade-shaped leaves like hundreds of leather straps, but now the trees were in full bloom. Spikes stood up from crowns of leaves with dozens of linen-white blossoms the size of egg cups clustered on them, breathing sweet perfume into the evening air. As the moonless night fell, fireflies rose up along the creek and from the meadow beyond it, twinkling in the mist. Beneath the leatherpod tree, the shadows grew black.

“Wish I could see you better,” Fawn murmured, as they lay down across their combined blankets and commenced a desultory fiddling with each other’s buttons. No one wanted a blanket atop, in this heat.

“Hm.” Dag sat up on one elbow and smiled in the dark. “Give me a minute, Spark, and I might be able to do something about that.”

“No, don’t put more wood on the fire. ’S too hot now.”

“Wasn’t going to. Just wait and see. In fact, close your eyes.”