But Abi could tell she was putting a brave face on it for strangers. Behind that smile, a last hope had died. A forlorn hope, to be sure, but it had been a hope. Sussena would never escape this crumbling house—unless it was by selling it before it deteriorated further. Life was going to go on lurching from one emergency to another. They were always going to be worried about the next meal, the next illness, the next piece of the house falling in. And one day it would be one emergency too many, and the careful juggling act would all fall apart.

Abi stared at the fireplace to avoid looking at Sussena, whose eyes were much too bright, suggesting she, too, was close to openly weeping. The great fireplace was the heart of the house, it was the most prominent feature of the place, with its massive chimney structure, designed to hold the heat built up in it over long winter nights. The hearth and chimney walls were massive, thicker even than the walls of the dairy. Massive enough that Abi had even considered that a hidden chamber might have been built into it in one of the bedrooms on the second floor or in the attic. But no. She’d checked all that thoroughly. It was just one solid superbly made tower of stone.

As a structure, the Artificer in her admired the work that had gone into it. On the dining room side, there was an iron spit where a whole adult pig could have been roasted in more prosperous days, and slices carved off to serve directly to the diners on festive occasions. On this side, there were two smaller spits, two cranes for kettles, a broad hearth where things could be baked on the hearthstone, and five proper ovens, two for cooking and one for keeping things warm until they were called for on the right and two for cooking on the left—

Wait a moment. Everything on the kitchen side is paired. Why is there only one warming oven?

She got up so quickly her chair fell over, and she moved to the chimney as if in a dream. Two baking ovens for meats and other baked dishes, with beautiful cast-iron doors, to the right and left of the fireplace below. Two more for bread, with wooden “stops” kept soaked in water to the right and left above them. Then, on the right, an open warming oven. And on the left . . .

She closed her eyes and reached out with her Gift. And they flew open again in startlement.

“Perry!” she cried out. “Get a chair! Help me!”