“Lakewalker looms are little hanging things, which can be taken down and carried easy when we move camp. We could never shift that big wooden frame of your aunt’s. That’s a farmer tool. Sessile, as bad as barns and houses. Targets…’’ He lowered his gaze to the cloth again. “This is good ground, in this. It used to be plants, and…and creatures. Now its ground is wholly transformed. All shirt, whole. That’s a good making, that is.” He raised his face and stared at Nattie with a new and keen curiosity. “There’s a blessing worked in.”

Fawn would have sworn Nattie’s lips twitched in a proud smirk, but the expression fleeted away too fast to be sure. “I tried,” Nattie said modestly. “It’s a wedding shirt, after all.”

“Huh.” Dag sat up, indicating with a nod that Fawn should take the shirt back. She folded it away again carefully and sat on the trunk. A tension hung between Nattie and Dag, and she hesitated to walk between them, lest something delicate tear and snap like a spiderweb.

Dag said, “I’m willing to try for the binding strings if you are, Aunt Nattie. It sure would change the argument, up home. If it doesn’t work, we’re no worse off than we were, except for the disappointment, and if it does…we’re that much farther along.”

“Farther along to where?” asked Nattie.

Dag gave a wry snort. “We’ll all find out when we arrive, I expect.”

“That’s a fair saying,” allowed Nattie amiably. “All right, patroller. You got yourself a bargain.”

“You mean you’ll speak for us to Mama and Papa?” Fawn wanted to jump up and squeal. She stopped it down to a more demure squeak, and leaped to the bed to give Nattie a hug and a kiss.

Nattie fought her off, unconvincingly. “Now, now, lovie, don’t carry on so. You’ll be giving me the heebie-jeebies.” She sat up straight and turned her face once more toward the man across from her. “One other thing…Dag. If you’d be willing to hear me out.”

His brows twitched up at the unaccustomed use of his name. “I’m a good listener.”

“Yeah, I noticed that about you.” But then Nattie fell silent. She shifted a little, as if embarrassed, or…or shy? Surely not…“Before that young Lakewalker fellow left, he gave me one last present. Because I said I was sorry to part never having seen his face. Well, actually, his lady gave it me, I suppose. She was something of a hand at Lakewalker healings, it seemed, of the sort he did for my poor ankle when first we met.”

“Matching grounds,” Dag interpreted this. “Yes? It’s a bit intimate. Actually, it’s a lot intimate.”