I looked at the too-little honey in the jar. “Just one more family,” I said, heading down the path again. “The Neills. Closest to the river.”

“No. We’re taking too long and the Neills aren’t likely to have any honey. But the bees still do.”

“Larkin, I told you. I already took what they had to spare.”

When he stopped, I stopped.

“Here’s the thing about bees,” he said. “They die. Winter’s too cold, they die. Too wet, they die. We take their honey, they die. It’s all the same.”

I shook my head. “My father told me I should always leave some for the bees.”

“And if he were awake to ask, he’d say maybe not this time. Especially when it’s springtime and the flowers are in bloom and, with them, more honey.”

“If the bees live long enough to make more.”

“Which they might. Which they probably will, Ellie.”

And there was something so sad in his eyes, so broken, that I felt broken, too.

“All right,” I finally said. “As long as we spend it on Cate, we should take what honey we can.”

Chapter Fifty-Six

“That’s quite a flint,” Larkin said when I took the spearhead from my pocket and opened my knife.

I held it up. “It sure is,” I said. “Used to be bigger, but I’ve worn it down some. I’d like to know who made it.”

“People here long before us.”

I liked that. That he had said us.

He watched as I collected some tinder and showered it with sparks until there, a thread of smoke. I bent low and blew gently, gently until a small flame leaped out of the smoke like a bright tongue from a gray beard.

We watched as it caught, grew, consumed the twigs we fed it and asked for more.

I tended it carefully until it was big enough to handle a stick we’d use to smoke the hive.

“That’s good work,” Larkin said to me.

“Thank you,” I said. “The hive’s pretty close to the ground, but since you’re taller, would you mind being the one to reach in?”

At which he smiled ruefully. “Oh, the curse of tallness.”

“Except you have no gloves,” I said. I pulled mine from my pack. “And I don’t think these will fit you.”

He tried to pull them on.

“Not quite,” he said.

I sighed. “Oh, the curse of smallness.”

Which made him smile again.

But I wasn’t smiling when I did as I had done before, emptying my pack so I could wear it as a hood.

Larkin helped me tuck my sleeves into my gloves, my pant legs into my boots, the hood into my collar.

I’m sure I looked stupid and funny, but neither of us laughed.