“I’ll think about it,” Llyn allowed with a faint smile. Diana took it with a grain of hope as she led the geldings back to the barn. She put them away one by one and glanced into the next stall. “Pomona’s lying down.”

“Pomona?” Llyn called from the end of the barn where he was hanging up the harness.

“Just because you don’t name your horses doesn’t mean I can’t. The bay mare with the white face—is she ready to foal already?”

He came in his silent long-legged stride, unlatching the stall and squatting down by the pregnant mare. She flicked her ears at him as he ran a hand over the swollen belly. “Looks like it.”

Diana glanced at the sky outside, already darkening toward dusk. She usually went home after her training, but she came to the stall door and folded her arms along the top. “Can I help?”

“Catch her head. She keeps trying to get up.”

Diana came into the stall and knelt in the straw, taking hold of the mare’s nose. “Sshh,” she soothed as Llyn stripped off his tunic and arm rings and felt expertly inside the mare.

“Feels like the foal’s turned wrong,” he said. “She’s always had trouble foaling. Hold her while I straighten things out in here.”

“Yes, sir.” Diana gave a little salute, and he smiled at her. She settled by the mare, murmuring wordlessly.

“Ah . . .” Another moment of patient fishing. “That should do it. Let’s let her push.”

He cleaned his arm in a bucket of water and pulled his tunic back over his head. He was marked all over with old scars—a slash across the left arm, a crater on one shoulder, a healed spear thrust marking his brown ribs. Strange to remember he had spent his youth killing Romans and fighting battles as his father’s right arm. I’m glad he got captured—otherwise I’d never have the Anemoi or learn to drive, Diana reflected. Better not tell him that, though.

They waited in comfortable silence, Diana chewing a straw, Llyn with his arms folded across his chest. “You shouldn’t be here at night.” He glanced at the darkening sky outside the barn door. “Your family wouldn’t like it. My father was rumored to eat young maidens for dinner once the sun went down, and now that he’s gone I’ve probably inherited the reputation.”

“I’m not worried,” she smiled. “How long will it take her to push that foal out?”

“Not long.” Llyn ran a hard hand over the mare’s nose, outstretched by his leg on the straw. “Maybe you’re not worried about your family, but I’d rather not have my house and horses confiscated by an outraged father who claims I ravaged his daughter before feeding her to a Druid.”