“No—I don’t know. I’m not a maker. We’d determined that by the time I was sixteen. Hadn’t the concentration for it. I needed to be moving all the time. I am not a maker, but that…”

“Was?” she prompted when he stayed stopped.

“That was a making. Absent gods.” He raised his left arm and rubbed his forehead on his sleeve.

She tucked her arm around him, trying to share warmth; she wasn’t sure how much good it did, but he smiled shakily for the attempt. His body was chilled all down his side. “We should go into the kitchen by the hearth. I could fix you a hot drink.”

“When I can stand up.” He added, “Maybe go around the outside of the house.”

Where they would not have to hazard her family. She nodded understanding.

“Groundwork,” he began, and trailed off. “You have to understand. Lakewalker groundwork—magic, you might say—involves taking something and making it more so, more itself, through reinforcing its ground. There’s a woman at Hickory Lake who works with leather, makes it repel rain. She has a sister who can make leather that turns arrows. She can make maybe two coats a month. I had one once.”

“Did it work?”

“Never had occasion to find out while I had it. I saw another turn a mud-man’s spear, though. Iron tip left nothing but a scratch in the hide. Of the coat, not of the patroller,” he clarified.

“Had? What happened to it?”

“Lent it to my oldest nephew when he began patrolling. He handed it on to his sister when she started. Last I knew my brother’s youngest took it with him when he went out of the hinterland. I’m not sure the coats are all that useful, for they’re like to make you careless, and they don’t protect the face and legs. But, you know…you worry for the youngsters.” His shudders were easing, but his expression remained strained and distant. “That bowl just now, though…I pushed its ground back to purest bowl-ness, and the glass just followed. I felt it so clear. Except that, except that…’’ He leaned his forehead down against hers, and whispered fearfully, “I pushed with the ground of my left hand, and I have no left hand and it has no ground. Whatever was there, for that minute, is gone again now. I’ve never heard of anything like that. But the best makers don’t speak of their craft much except to their own. So I don’t know. Don’t…know.”

The door swung open; Whit edged out into the shadows of the porch. “Um…Fawn…?”

“What, Whit?” she said impatiently.