“Thank you,” the Orphan said, unsure of what exactly he was thanking her for.

It had been a surreal hour or two, that was for sure. Roxy brought him into her home, showed him to a room with a giant bed, carpet on the floor, paintings and mirrors on the walls, a large window that looked out on mountains. There was even a giant stuffed bear on the floor, a thing so outrageous that the Orphan stared at it for a full minute before glancing away. A bathroom was attached, equipped to the core with a sink, toilet, and tub. A framed craft of some sort hung on the wall with words stitched across a colorful depiction of flowers. It said: No matter where you travel, no matter where you roam, the best part is coming home.

Yep. Had to be a fever dream.

He’d washed up, put on fresh clothes provided by his host, then joined her for a single meal that could’ve fed every last person in his barracks room back at the fortress. Just him and her, her and him. She had to be at least fifty years old, though he had no real basis for the guess. She just seemed matronly, old-fashioned, like a . . .

Well, like a grandma. A grandma in a fever dream.

The Orphan had devoured the food—beef, potatoes, beans, corn, cinnamon bread—offering only grunts and nods or shakes of the head as she talked his ear off, barely touching her own food. She’d lived alone for years since her husband died, and before that they’d lived most of their adult lives alone, loving each other and tilling the land, hunting the forests for game. This only added to the fairy-tale nature of the whole thing, but the Orphan mostly concentrated on shoving more food down his throat.

And now, here they were. The Orphan, tilted over on the couch, too stuffed to move, and Roxy sitting all prim and proper on her chair. Not for the first time, he wondered why he’d trusted her so much, so quickly—especially in a world drenched with mistrust and sorrow. He didn’t know for certain, but his heart told him that he’d had no choice. That he’d reached the end of his rope. Kind of like a boy named Kit . . .

“You ready to tell me your name yet?” she asked him.

He gave her a quizzical look.

“I’ve asked you several times since you arrived, and, well . . . Don’t take this the wrong way—you seem like a very nice young man—but you make lots of sounds and most of them aren’t words. Now, I don’t expect you to do a whole lot of talkin’ the way you stumbled into my yard barely alive and skinny as a toothpick, but I would at least like to know your name.”