“This person wishes you happiness and good health,” he said. It was a formal statement, but he meant it and let that show. She drew breath, relaxed a little, and suddenly smiled back at him—a real smile, which held acknowledgment of what had been true between them and regret for what could be true no longer.

She put out her hand, impulsively, and he took it, kissed it—and gave it back.

“What it is,” she repeated, her smile lapsing into seriousness, “is that John Whitewater is a good man, but he dreams of my son.”

“Of Tòtis? What does he dream?” It was plain that the dreams were not good ones.

“He has dreamed that when the moon begins to wax, he sees a boy standing there”—she lifted her chin to point to the entrance of her sleeping compartment—“against the moonlight that comes from the smoke hole, and the boy’s face is not seen, but clearly it is Tòtis. Waiting. He dreams that the child comes, night by night, the light growing stronger behind him and the child growing bigger. And John Whitewater knows that when the moon is full, a man who is my son will come in to kill him.”

“Well, that’s not a good dream, no,” Ian said, in English. “Ye havena had this dream yourself?”

Emily grimaced and shook her head, and the live thing quivering in Ian’s backbone settled. He didn’t ask whether she believed that Whitewater had in fact dreamed this; that was clear. But if she had been dreaming the same thing, that would be very serious. Not that it wasn’t anyway.

“I have not shared his dream,” she said, so low that he barely heard her. “But when he told me … The next night I, too, had a dream. I dreamed that he killed Tòtis. He broke my son’s neck, like a rabbit.”

The live thing leapt straight up into Ian’s throat, and a good thing, too, as it stopped him speaking.

“This dream has come twice, and this person has prayed,” she said softly, going back to the Kahnyen’kehaka.

“This person prayed,” she repeated, looking up into his face, “and you are here.”

He was mildly surprised that he wasn’t shocked. Swiftest of Lizards had told him that old Tewaktenyonh had told him that he was the son of Ian’s spirit. Clearly she would have told Wakyo’teyehsnonhsa the same thing—or Emily had told the old woman.

“I thought perhaps I would have to send my son to my sister, in Albany,” she said. “But she has no husband now, and three children to feed. And I worry,” she said simply. “Things are very dangerous. Thayendanegea says that the war will soon be over, but his wife’s eyes say he does not believe it.”