A golden light flickered and danced and, for a moment, Adelaide thought she was back in the cave with the fire licking around them, but as her vision cleared, the flame resolved itself into a single candle burned almost down to the holder in the middle of the table. Her table in her parlour.

She rolled onto her back and stretched her stiff limbs. She set her bare feet on the floor and padded across to the clock on the mantel. The hands sat at twenty minutes past twelve. She had slept for at least six hours. The house and the town were silent except for the distant thump of the mine battery. Not even near annihilation in a conflagration would stop the mine workings.

Danny.

With her heart thumping against her chest so hard she thought it would burst through, she pushed open the door to Danny’s room. The lamp on the nightstand had been turned down low and Caleb slept in a chair beside the bed, his feet propped up on the bed and his head against the wall, a book open on the floor beside him.

Danny lay curled on his side, facing Caleb, so still …

She reached over, laying her hand on the boy’s forehead. Cool but warm enough and Danny’s chest rose and fell in a gentle, untroubled rhythm. She got to her knees beside the bed and buried her head in her arms, her prayers of thankfulness fervent.

The chair scraped and she looked up as Caleb took his feet off the bed. He leaned forward and picked up Danny’s wrist. His face remained impassive and unreadable. Then he set the boy’s hand down and looked up at her. A slow smile caught the corners of his mouth and he nodded.

Adelaide let out her breath.

‘I could do with a cup of tea,’ he whispered.

In the kitchen, Netty dozed in a chair beside the stove. She lurched awake, looking from one to the other with fearful eyes.

‘I think it worked,’ Caleb told Netty. ‘He’s sleeping peacefully. Fever’s gone and his pulse is normal.’

Netty clasped her hands to her chest and turned her gaze to the ceiling. ‘Praise the Lord.’

‘What worked?’ Adelaide said.

Caleb glanced at a bowl on the table that seemed to be full of damp leaves and sticks. ‘Mick’s friend, Lin, gave us some Chinese medicine.’

Anger flared in Adelaide’s chest. ‘Why didn’t you wake me? It wasn’t your decision to make—’ She stopped herself. ‘You think that’s what did it?’

Caleb shrugged. ‘I don’t think we’ll ever know for sure, but I was willing to try anything.’ He sat at the table and covered his face with his hands, dragging them down his cheeks as he said, ‘I can tell you now, I didn’t think the boy would see morning.’