At a long table filling most of the right-hand half of the room, eight people turned and stared. Dag swiftly tried to match faces with the names and stories he’d been given. Aunt Nattie could be instantly identified, a very short, stout woman with disordered curly gray locks and eyes as milky as pearls, her head now cocked with listening. The four brothers were harder to sort, but he thought he could determine Fletch, bulky and oldest, Reed and Rush, the nonidentical twins, brown-haired and brown-eyed, and ash-haired and blue-eyed respectively, and Whit, black-haired like Fawn, skinny, and youngest but for her. A plump young woman seated next to Fletch defeated his tutorial. Fawn’s parents, Sorrel and Tril Bluefield, were no hardship to identify, a graying man at the table’s head who’d stood up so fast his chair had banged over, and on the near end a short, middle-aged woman stumbling out of her seat shrieking.

Fawn’s parents descended upon her in such a whirl of joy, relief, and rage that Dag had to close off his groundsense lest he be overwhelmed. The brothers, behind, were mostly grinning with relief, and Aunt Nattie was asking urgently, “What? Is that Fawn, you say? Told you she wasn’t dead! About time!”

Fawn, her face nearly unreadable, endured being hugged, kissed, and shaken in equal measure; the dampness in her blinking eyes was not, Dag thought, caught only from the emotions around her. Dag stiffened a little when her father, after hugging her off her feet, put her down and then threatened to beat her; but while his paternal relief was very real, it seemed his threats were not, for Fawn didn’t flinch in the least from them.

“Where have you been, girl?” her mother’s voice finally rose over the babble to demand.

Fawn backed up a trifle, raised her chin, and said in a rush, “I went to Glassforge to look for work, and I may have found some too, but first I have to go with Dag, here, to Hickory Lake to help make his report to his captain about the blight bogle we killed.”

Her family gazed at Fawn as though she’d started raving in a fever; Dag suspected the only part they’d really caught was Glassforge.

Fawn went on a bit breathlessly, before they could start up again, “Mama, Papa, this here is my friend, Dag Redwing Hickory.” She gave her characteristic little knee-dip, and pulled Dag forward. He nodded, trying to find some pleasantly neutral expression for his face. “He’s a Lakewalker patroller.”

“How de’ do,” said Dag politely and generally.

A silence greeted this, and a lot more staring, necks cranked back. Short stature ran in Fawn’s family, evidently.

Confirming Dag’s guess, Fawn’s mother, Tril, said, “Glassforge? Why would you want to go there to look for work? There’s plenty of work right here!”