“Bogles are real enough. One touched me. Here and there.” She fingered her neck where the dents glowed an angry red, and, reluctantly, laid her palm over her belly. “Lakewalkers make special knives to kill malices—that’s their name for blight bogles. Dag had one. Between us, we did for the bogle, but it was too late for the child. It was almost too late for the two of us, but not quite.”

“Oh, magic knives, now, as well as magic monsters? Sure, I believe that. Or maybe some of those secret Lakewalker medicines did the job, and the rest is a nice tale to cover it, make you look good in front of your family, eh?” He moved closer to her. She moved back.

“They don’t even know I was pregnant. I didn’t tell them that part.” She drew a long breath. “Do you really care which, so long as it’s not on you? Feh!” She gripped her hair, then drew her hands down hard over her face. “You know, I really don’t give two pennies what you think as long as you go think it somewhere else.” Aunt Nattie had once remarked that the opposite of love was not hate, but indifference. Fawn felt she was beginning to see the point of that.

Sunny edged closer again; she could feel his breath stir the sweat-dampened hairs on her neck. “So…have you been letting that patroller fellow poke you? Does your family know that?”

Fawn’s breath clogged in rage. She would not scream…“After a miscarriage? You got no brains at all, Sunny Sawman!”

He did hesitate at that, doubt flickering in his blue eyes.

“Besides,” she went on, “you’re marrying Violet Stonecrop. Are you poking her yet?”

His lips drew back in something like a smile, except that it was devoid of humor. He stepped closer still. “I was right. You are a little slut.” And grinned in countertriumph at the fury she knew was reddening her face. “Don’t give me that scowl,” he added, lifting a hand to squeeze her breast. “I know how easy you are.”

Her fingers groped for the frying-pan handle.

Long footsteps sounded from the weaving room; Sunny jumped back hurriedly.

“Hello, Spark,” said Dag. “Any more of that cider around?”

“Sure, Dag,” she said, backing away from Sunny and escaping across the room to the crock on the shelf. She shifted the lid and drew a cup, willing her hands to stop shaking.

Somehow, Dag was now standing between her and Sunny. “Caller?” he inquired, with a nod at Sunny. Sunny looked as though he was furiously wondering whether Dag had just come in, if they had been overheard, and if the latter, how incriminatingly much.

“This here’s Sunny Sawman,” said Fawn. “He’s leaving. Dag Redwing Hickory, a Lakewalker patroller. He’s staying.”