She followed her orders and went down to the shore, avoiding the gathering of mages down by the jetty. Now that the sun was up, the lake water was more blue than steel, but with edges going to green, except where the jetty was. Bay came with her, wagging his tail solemnly when she looked at him. “Good boy,” she told him. He snorted and picked up his ears, tail wagging harder.

She took off her boots and waded in. The water was cold, but shallow enough here that she could see the sandy bottom, and little minnows darting through the plants—which were, as specified, round. She bent down and began cutting, stacking the cut reeds up along the dry shore as she worked. The water smelled clean, the cut reeds added a pleasant green scent, the sun was comfortable for now—but she decided that when she’d finished cutting as much reed as she could carry, she’d go back and get her hat from her pack. It didn’t make any sense to come all this way to help, only to be felled by sunstroke.

Bay kept watch while she worked, and she was quite comforted by his presence. After all . . . she already knew there were bears.

When she returned, Alberdina and Ivar were creating a sort of tent-shelter using the stone walls and the enormous piece of canvas. They’d spread the canvas over the top of the walls and were working their way around the base, pounding wooden pegs cut from branches into the ground with the hammer-ends of their hand-axes and tying off the pieces of rope fastened to the grommets in the canvas. “Spread the reeds about two knuckles deep around the edge of the tower inside,” said Alberdina. “Keep cutting and spreading until you’ve gone all the way around the edge.” Delia spread her reeds, got her hat, and went back to the lake edge to gather more.

By the time she’d finished about a quarter of the circle, Alberdina and Ivar were inside the new shelter, ducking their heads a little, lashing together a sort of rack made of branches, after pounding the uprights into the ground. They’d picked a place that was up against the tower wall that had a tumble of stones under it; obviously she didn’t need to put reeds there. By the time she’d finished the next quarter, the rack was finished and all the packs were stacked on it, up off the ground. Smaller bags were hung by their straps off the frame. Ivar was gone, and Alberdina was clearing away a spot where it looked like a fireplace had been built into the wall.

By the time she’d finished the third quarter, Ivar had come back with several armfuls of wood. Alberdina had started a fire and had metal grates on legs poised over it.