“I suppose you’ll tell me they aren’t really magic, again.”

He sighed, rose, came over, and sat down cross-legged beside her. He took the pouch thoughtfully in his hand.

“They’re human bone, aren’t they,” she added more quietly, watching him.

“Yes,” he said a little distantly. His gaze swung back to her. “Understand, patrollers have had trouble with farmers before over sharing knives. Misunderstandings. We’ve learned not to discuss them. You have earned…there are reasons…you must be told. I can only ask that you don’t talk about it with anyone, after.”

“Anyone at all?” she puzzled.

He made a little jerk of his fingers. “Lakewalkers all know. I mean outsiders. Farmers. Although in this case…well, we’ll get to that.”

Roundaboutly, it seemed. She frowned at this uncharacteristic loss of straightforwardness on his part. “All right.”

He took a breath, straightening his spine a trifle. “Not just any human bones. Our own, Lakewalker bones. Not farmer bones, and most especially not kidnapped farmer children’s bones, all right? Adult. Have to be, for the length and strength. You’d think people would—well. Thighbones, usually, and sometimes upper arms. It makes our funeral practices something outsiders are not invited to. Some of the most aggravating rumors have been started around stray glimpses…we are not cannibals, rest assured!”

“I actually hadn’t heard that one.”

“You might, if you’re around long enough.”

She had seen hogs and cows butchered; she could imagine. Her mind leaped ahead to picture Dag’s long legs—no.

“Some mess is unavoidable, but it’s all done respectfully, with ceremony, because we all know it could be our turn later. Not everyone donates their bones; it would be more than needed, and some aren’t suitable. Too old or young, too thin or fragile. I mean to give mine, if I die young enough.”

The thought made an odd knot in her belly that had nothing to do with her cramping. “Oh.”

“But that’s just the body of the knife, the first half of the making. The other half, the thing that makes it possible to share death with a malice, is the priming.” The quick would-be-reassuring smile with this did not reach his eyes. “We prime it with a death. A donated death, one of our own. In the making, the knife is bonded, matched to the intended primer, so they are very personal, d’you see.”

Fawn pushed herself up, increasingly riveted and increasingly disturbed. “Go on.”

“When you’re a Lakewalker who means to give your death to a knife and you’re close to dying—wounded in the field beyond hope of recovery, or dying at home of natural causes, you—or more often your comrade or kin—take the sharing knife and insert it into your heart.”

Fawn’s lips parted. “But…”

“Yes, it kills us. That’s the whole point.”