“Drunk a lot. You’ve seen him angry. He gets sad too, when he doesn’t think anyone else sees. Keeping life together is hard for him.”

“Is he—is he hard to you and your sisters?”

“That in the square, that’s as mean as I’ve seen him. He shouts. Shoves. Screams. Breaks things. Sometimes we shout back. Hannah especially. We’re all cats drowning in a bag at home.” Claire flicked the reins, though the golem did not change stride. “After Mom, he tried to keep it together. He drank to take the edge off, I guess. Only Corbin has a lot of edges. You can take off one after another until only a little nub in the middle’s left, and once you’ve gone that far maybe you keep going.”

“So you take care of the girls.”

Her arms clenched, drawing back the reins, and the golem slowed. Matt watched her force herself loose. The tension didn’t leave her shoulders, back, or arms, but she faked relaxation well enough. “I pick up what he drops. I maintain.”

“What that gargoyle did to him won’t last forever. He comes back, he’ll walk the same trail as before. And that’s bad for him, and dangerous for you.”

“I know, Mr. Adorne.”

Which was a door closing.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“If there was a way to force him to rest, I’d take it. The girls need the space. So do I.”

A bump shifted crates in the truck bed. Matt turned to right a few squash which further jostling might have rolled onto his eggs. “I might have an idea,” he said when he settled back beside her.

“What?”

“Rather not say much until I’ve talked to people. Don’t want to promise anything.”

They crested the ridge and descended from the forest to the city below, its road-veined circle quartered by the bite of the bay. “Matt.”

“Yes?”

“The story. Gracklet?”

“They’re real. I made up the bit at the end about the vurms, and there’s a name for rallybird that sounds better in Eld. But gracklet are about as common as mountain lions in the Geistwood, maybe a quarter the size, solitary for the most part. They claim territory like spiders do. Friendly, though. Human soulstuff’s too tight-wound for them to drink, and they’ll only go for you with their fangs if they’re hurt or you threaten their eggs. I saw one once when my dad took me camping. Scales aren’t as bright as they get down south, but still brighter than you tend to find up here in winter country. You see one, you offer a bright feather to Kos and a silver coin to Seril.”

“If this is another setup for a joke, I will hurt you.”