“Thank you,” said Fawn, trying to feel grateful. She supposed it would not be understood if she asked for the kitchen floor back. The floor and Dag. Where would these graceless farmers try to put the patroller? In the barn? The thought made her glower.

Long, unmistakable footfalls sounded in the hall, followed by a sharp double rap against the door. “Come in, Dag,” Fawn called, before Petti could say anything.

He eased inside. A stack of dry garments lay over his left arm, the laundry Fawn had seen draped over the pasture fence earlier, Fawn’s blue dress and linen drawers; underneath were his own trousers and drawers that had been so spectacularly bloodied yesterday. He had her bedroll tucked under his armpit.

He laid the bedroll down in a swept corner of the room, with her cleaned clothes atop. “There you go, Spark.”

“Thank you, Dag,” she said simply. His smile flickered across his face like light on water, gone in the instant. Didn’t anyone ever just say thank you to patrollers? She was really beginning to wonder.

With a wary nod at the watching Petti, he stepped to Fawn’s bedside and laid his palm on her brow. “Warm,” he commented. He traded the palm for the inside of his wrist. Fawn tried to feel his pulse through their skins, as she had listened to his heartbeat, without success. “But not feverish,” he added under his breath.

He stepped back a little, his lips tightening. Fawn remembered those lips breathing in her hair last night, and suddenly wanted nothing more than to kiss and be kissed good night by them. Was that so wrong? Somehow, Petti’s frowning presence made it so.

“What did you find outside?” she asked, instead.

“Not my patrol.” He sighed. “Not for a mile in any direction, least-ways.”

“Do you suppose they’re all still looking on the wrong side of Glassforge?”

“Could be. It looks like it’s fixing to rain; heat lightning off to the west. If I really were stuck in a ditch, I wouldn’t be sorry, but I hate to think of them running around in the woods in the dark and wet, in fear for me, when I’m snug inside and safe. I’m going to hear about that later, I expect.”

“Oh, dear.”

“Don’t worry, Spark; another day it will be the other way around. And then it will be my turn to be, ah, humorous.” His eyes glinted in a way that made her want to laugh.

“Will we really go to Glassforge tomorrow?”

“We’ll see. See how you’re doing in the morning, for one.”

“I’m doing much better tonight. Bleeding’s no worse than a monthly, now.”

“Do you want your hot stone again?”

“Really, I don’t think I need it anymore.”

“Good. Sleep hard, then, you.”

She smiled shyly. “I’ll try.”