As he often did, Frypan gave that a hoot and a holler. “Don’t I wish. First thing I do every morning is check my pulse and see if I’m dead yet.”

Jackie gave him a hoot and a holler right back, as did most of the others. Isaac smiled, but he wasn’t quite ready for laughs, yet. He couldn’t get his mind off the Forge and its fires and its red-hot metals and its steam and its smells of sweat, leather, and things burnt. It was ironic, in a way. He’d worked his tail off at the Forge in the year after he’d lost his family to help him forget about the tragedy of it all, at least for pockets of time. But now, remembering that place, his favorite place, made him think of his mom, his dad, his sister. And that horrible day.

Frypan cleared his throat and leaned closer to the fire. “Ah, to hell with it. Ya’ll want a story? We don’t have to make any decisions tonight.”

His question was met with a resounding yes and he was happy to oblige, using names that all of them knew very well. “Sweet little Chuck was always up to no good, and there was this one night when he got Thomas in on the act. Well, Gally was doing his thing on the toilet, you see . . .”

As Old Man Frypan told his story, Isaac listened and watched the campfire and all the memories that came with it. The smoke rose in a ghostly pillar, the flames flickered and danced with bright heat, and the night didn’t seem all that dark.

EPILOGUE

Two Boxes

She sat in the library of her residence, her prized possessions resting on the table before her. Mannus and her pilgrims had delivered in every way she had hoped. Initially, she thought it unwise to be here, where she’d lived for years, having what she now owned. But then she remembered that there was nothing to fear. Nothing at all. Not even Mikhail would dare move against her, now.

She slid the first box closer to her, lifted its lid. To get a better view, she stood up, looked down into the open container from directly above. The eyes of Nicholas stared back at her, his eyelids removed so that they could never close again. She smiled at him, half-expecting what was left of the dead man to return the kind gesture. He did not.