“Um. Aunt Nattie says. Um. Aunt Nattie says she’s had enough of this nonsense and she’ll see you and the patroller in her rooms and be having the end of it one way or another as soon as the patroller is up to it. Um. Sir.”

Behind the fringe of his hair, Dag’s lips twitched slightly. He raised his face. “Thank you, Whit,” he said gravely. “Tell Aunt Nattie we’ll be along soon.”

Whit gulped, ducked his head, and fled back indoors.

They rose and went around the north side of the house to the kitchen, Dag resting his left arm heavily across Fawn’s shoulders. He stumbled twice. She made him sit by the hearth while she fixed him a cup of hot water with some peppermint leaves crushed in, holding it to his lips while he drank it down. By then he’d stopped shivering, and his clammy skin had dried and warmed again. She saw her parents and Fletch peeking timidly from the darkness of the hall, but they said nothing and did not venture in.

Aunt Nattie appeared at the door to her shadowed weaving room. “Well, patroller. You were flyin’ there for a bit, I guess.”

“Yes, ma’am, I was,” Dag agreed wryly.

“Fawn, you fetch in the patroller and what lights you want.” She turned back into the dark, scuffing feet and cane over the floor-boards, not wearily, but just for the company of the sound, as she sometimes did.

Fawn looked anxiously at Dag. The firelight she’d poked up glimmered red-orange over his skin, yellow on his coarse white shirt and the sling, and his eyes were dark and wide. He looked tired, and confused, and as if his arm was hurting, but he smiled reassuringly at her, and she smiled back. “You ready?” she asked.

“Not sure, but I’m too curious to care. Possibly not a trait helpful to longevity in a patroller, but there you go.”

She took down the candle lamp with the chipped glass sleeve from the mantel and lit it, grabbing the unlit iron holder with the three stubs while she was at it, and led off. With a muffled eh, he levered himself up out of his chair and paced after her.

Nattie called from their bedroom, “Close both doors, lovie. It will keep the noise out.”