At dawn, they found a small red mitten hanging from a branch.
The forest had been gray since before first light. Frost clothed the fir needles, and the wind made a dry ticking sound when their branches brushed. Luvztospoon had expected to follow the escaped prisoners by the marks of a litter or the occasional broken twig. He had not expected so small a thing to halt Seven so completely.
He lifted the mitten free. The wool was stiff with frozen water, one thumb stretched out of shape. A child had worn it until someone pulled it loose in the rush through the trees. He held it where Seven could see. In the days before the quarry, their search for one another had filled every thought; now there were twelve more people whose survival could not be set aside simply because the two of them had finally met again.
Sevenofknine stopped beneath it. The wool had caught on a broken twig. Below it, footprints crossed the stream and disappeared among the pines: boots, smaller boots, and a long uneven scrape where someone had dragged a foot.
“The prisoners,” she said.
Luvztospoon took down the mitten. It barely covered two of his fingers.
“They went west.”
“We should go south.”
He looked at the tracks again. Sevenofknine sighed.
“You’re going west.”
“Someone’s missing a mitten.”
“That is a terrible reason.”
He tucked it beneath his belt. She was already following the footprints.
✦
They found the dwarf standing outside a ruined charcoal burner’s hut, holding the stolen sword in both hands. He raised it when he heard them coming. Then he lowered it just enough to look offended.
“Took your time.”
“We brought your army a mitten,” Luvztospoon said.
The dwarf glanced at the small red bundle.
“That’ll turn the tide.”
Inside the hut, the prisoners huddled beneath a roof patched with pine branches. There were twelve of them. Luvztospoon counted twice before he let himself lean against the doorway. The woman from the wagon sat beside a cold hearth, her child asleep across her knees. Sevenofknine knelt and placed the mitten in her hand. The woman stared at it for a moment. Then her fingers closed around the wool.
“Thank you.”
Sevenofknine nodded and stood quickly. The dwarf watched her return to the door.
“Dorrin,” he said.
Luvztospoon looked down at him. Luvztospoon looked down at him. “Your name?”
“Unless you prefer People with a Key,” Dorrin said.
“Luvztospoon.”
Dorrin waited.
“That’s the whole name.”
“Right.” He looked at Sevenofknine. “And yours?”
She told him. The dwarf considered them both.
“I’m going to need breakfast before I attempt either of those.”
He stepped aside as Luvztospoon ducked beneath the lintel. Even bent forward, the Tauren’s horn scraped the roof. Dust sifted onto his shoulder.
“Careful,” Dorrin said. “We only just stopped it falling down.”
Luvztospoon lowered himself beside the wall. His injured arm would not straighten. Sevenofknine saw. This time she did not ask how bad it was.
“Take off the armor.”
“We should keep moving.”
“After I see the wound.”
Dorrin pointed at a young man lying beneath two coats.
“His ankle’s swollen twice its size. Another mile and we’ll be carrying him.”
Luvztospoon looked toward the forest through the broken doorway. No horn sounded. Nothing moved between the trees.
“One hour.”
Sevenofknine reached for the fastening at his shoulder.
“We’ll see.”
✦
The bandage had stuck to the wound.
They worked near the hut's coldest wall, away from the children and the little cooking fire. The room was full of people pretending not to watch them. Luvztospoon tried to sit still while Seven sorted the salvaged strips of linen, but the effort showed in the stubborn line of his jaw.
She had stitched wounds once in a kitchen with bad light and a table that rocked. He had complained about every knot. That memory came uninvited as she reached for the water. He saw it in her face and wondered whether she had remembered the same day. Neither mentioned it. There were some things too fragile to hold in a room full of strangers, and for the moment her steady hands mattered more than what they might say.
Sevenofknine softened it with water from a prisoner’s flask, working slowly until the cloth came free. Luvztospoon watched the doorway while she cleaned the torn flesh beneath it.
“You opened it again,” she said.
“There were riders.”
“I remember.”
She folded a clean strip of linen. The woman by the hearth had torn it from the lining of her coat without being asked. Sevenofknine’s hand trembled as she pressed it against his arm. He turned from the doorway.
“Give me a moment,” she said.
He waited. She tried again. This time the tremor pulled her fingers away before she could tie the knot. Luvztospoon caught the loose end with his good hand. Together, they tightened the bandage. Neither spoke until it was done. Luvztospoon looked at Sevenofknine. “The ring?” She sat back on her heels. “I can still feel it.”
“Where?”
She pressed two fingers beneath her breastbone.
“Here. Sometimes it pulls. Sometimes…”
Her gaze moved toward the hearth.
“Sometimes I think I hear someone in another room.”
Luvztospoon rested his sword across his knees. A crack ran from the damaged tip toward one of the runes. Sevenofknine looked at it.
“What happened back there?”
“You saw.”
“I saw you throw a man into a wall without touching him. I’ve seen you do that before.”
She lowered her voice.
“Then I heard something answer you.”
He ran his thumb along the flat of the blade, stopping short of the crack.
“I felt it under the quarry. When I reached for the ring.”
“Did it speak?”
“No.”
He could have left it there. Instead he looked at her.
“It recognized me.”
Sevenofknine went very still.
“From where?”
“I don’t know.”
Beyond them, Dorrin helped the injured young man sit up. The child stirred in her mother’s arms and asked for water. Sevenofknine leaned closer.
“We need to find out.”
“We will.”
“Before you use that power again.”
He looked at the fresh bandage, then at her hands.
“I’ll try.”
She nodded once. She had heard the limit in his answer.
✦
Dorrin had worked the old quarry twenty years before. He told them while they divided the little food the prisoners had carried away: two hard biscuits, a bruised apple, and a heel of bread taken from a guard’s coat.
“There’s a foreman’s lodge west of here. Stone walls. Roof ought to stand even if the timber’s gone. We can shelter there.”
“How far?” Sevenofknine asked.
“Two miles by the cart road. Less through the trees.”
She glanced at the man with the injured ankle.
“We’ll need something to carry him on.”
Two prisoners went outside to cut poles. Dorrin stayed beside the hearth, turning the apple in his hands.
“You saw the ring,” Luvztospoon said.
The dwarf stopped turning it.
“Aye.”
“Have you seen those marks before?”
Dorrin took a bite, chewed, and swallowed with difficulty.
“On a door.”
Sevenofknine drew closer.
“In the quarry?”
“Below it. We broke into an old passage while cutting a drainage shaft. Stairs at the far end. Proper stairs, dressed stone. Someone had built down there long before we started taking rock out.”
Sevenofknine leaned closer. “What was beyond the door?”
“Never opened it,” Dorrin said.
“But you heard something,” she pressed.
Dorrin looked at her. For the first time since they had met him, he seemed old.
“A miner called Harl heard his wife. She’d been dead six winters. Said she was cold on the other side.”
He set down the apple.
“We had to drag him up the stairs. He fought us all the way.”
Luvztospoon’s grip tightened on his sword. Luvztospoon’s grip tightened. “What happened to him?” Dorrin looked at the floor. “He came back that night with a hammer. Watchman found him at the shaft before he could get down. Foreman closed the quarry a week later.”
“Why didn’t anyone destroy the door?” Sevenofknine asked.
“Our foreman wanted a priest to look at it first. Sent for one from a settlement to the south.”
“Did he come?”
“She did. Three days after we sealed the shaft.”
The dwarf reached beneath his ragged sleeve and showed them a scar along the inside of his wrist.
“Burned this pulling Harl out. She treated it. Asked me questions for half the night.”
“Her name?”
“Sister Maelin.”
Sevenofknine looked at Luvztospoon. They had a direction now. Then Dorrin said, “There’s something else.” His eyes settled on her face.
“You spoke in the wagon.”
“I was never in the wagon.”
“I know. That’s why I didn’t mention it before.”
The hut seemed to grow quieter around them.
“The man with the ring stood beside us last night,” Dorrin said. “Before you came. He asked whether the passage was clear.”
“Who did he ask?” Luvztospoon said.
“The ring.”
Sevenofknine’s hand closed over the place beneath her ribs.
“What did it say?”
“That the keeper was dead. That you were coming.”
She shook her head.
“I didn’t say those things.”
“I believe you.” Dorrin picked up the apple again, though he did not eat. “But I heard your voice.”
✦
They left the hut before their hour was done. Four prisoners took turns carrying the injured man on a litter made from pine poles and coats. Dorrin led them west, pausing wherever the old cart road crossed their path to check the snow for tracks. Sevenofknine walked beside Luvztospoon. She had said little since Dorrin’s account. Once, when the child called to her mother, she turned so sharply that Luvztospoon reached for his sword.
“It was only her,” Sevenofknine said.
“I know.”
She looked at his hand on the hilt. He let it fall. The lodge stood in a clearing above a frozen pond. One corner of its roof had sagged, but the walls were sound and the door still hung on its hinges. Dorrin knocked with the pommel of his sword. They waited. Nothing answered. Luvztospoon entered first.
There were two rooms downstairs, a loft, and a narrow cellar full of empty barrels. He checked them all. Sevenofknine examined the windows while Dorrin cleared snow from the hearth vent. Only after that did they bring the others inside. By noon, a small fire burned behind a screen of stone. The woman had told them her name was Mara; she sat close to it with her daughter, Ellie, and warmed the red mitten over the coals.
Sevenofknine stood watching until Ellie held out her bare hand.
“You found it.”
“He found it,” Sevenofknine said, nodding toward Luvztospoon.
Ellie looked up at him.
“You’re very big.”
“I’ve been told.”
“Were you always?”
“It took some practice.”
The child considered that, then held her hand out again to Sevenofknine. This time, Sevenofknine helped her pull on the mitten. Luvztospoon watched her straighten its small wool thumb. For a moment, her hands were steady.
✦
Late in the afternoon, Sevenofknine found him at the back window. Beyond the lodge, snow lay untouched between the trees.
“Dorrin says there’s a village half a day west,” she said. “They can get help there. He knows the way.”
“And Maelin?”
“He thinks she still keeps a chapel south of the old mill road.”
Luvztospoon nodded. She stayed beside him.
“You should rest,” she said.
“So should you.”
“I tried.”
He turned. She was looking down at the windowsill, tracing a split in the wood with her fingertip.
“Every time I close my eyes, I’m back in the quarry.”
He moved aside, making room for her against the wall. After a moment, she leaned there.
“When you caught me,” she said, “I thought you were going to let go.”
“Why?”
“Because you could feel it too.”
He remembered the ring’s light crossing her face. The weight of her in his arms. The dreadful eagerness beneath the stone.
“I was afraid,” he said.
She looked up.
“Of me?”
“Of dropping you.”
Her mouth tightened. She reached for his good hand and held it between both of hers. He could feel the slight tremor returning.
“I don’t remember everything,” she said. “About before. There are days I can’t put in order. Places I know I should remember.”
He waited.
“But sometimes I remember you so clearly it hurts.”
“What do you remember?”
“Rain. An inn with a leaking roof.”
He smiled faintly.
“Three leaking roofs. You moved the bed twice.”
“And you stood under the last leak.”
“You said someone had to catch it.”
She laughed, quietly, then pressed her lips together as if she had not expected the sound. Luvztospoon lifted their joined hands.
“I remember that too.”
She rested her forehead against his chest. He bent over her, carefully, and closed his eyes. From the other room came the scrape of Dorrin tending the fire. Ellie asked for another story. Someone began one. For a little while, neither of them moved.
✦
Near dusk, the lodge’s back door opened. Luvztospoon woke at the sound of the latch. He had fallen asleep sitting against the wall, his sword within reach. The room was gray. Sevenofknine’s place beside him was empty. He rose too quickly and struck his shoulder against the window frame. Outside, she walked toward the frozen pond. No coat. No weapon.
“Seven.”
She did not turn. He caught up with her at the water’s edge and took her arm. Her eyes were open.
“Sevenofknine.”
She drew a breath so sharply it hurt to hear. Then she looked at him, at the pond, and down at her bare hands.
“I was inside.”
“You walked out.”
“No. I was sitting beside you.”
Behind them, Dorrin appeared in the doorway with a blanket. Sevenofknine began to shake. Luvztospoon pulled her away from the bank. Under the ice, something tapped. They stopped. The pond was shallow. Through its cloudy surface, Luvztospoon could see weeds bent beneath the frozen water and stones along the bottom. The tap came again. Sevenofknine gripped his arm.
“It told me you were down there.”
He backed toward the lodge, keeping her with him. Dorrin hurried forward and wrapped the blanket around her shoulders. Across the pond, a narrow crack appeared in the ice. Then another. Luvztospoon looked at the trees, the darkening sky, and the smoke rising thinly from the chimney. They had carried the injured man two miles to reach this shelter. Ellie was warm at last. Inside, twelve people believed their flight was over.
“Put out the fire,” he told Dorrin.
The dwarf looked at the spreading cracks. He did not argue. Sevenofknine kept her eyes on the pond as Luvztospoon led her back.
“I heard your voice,” she whispered.
He held the door open for her. From beneath the ice, his voice called her name again.
The sound reached him through the closed door as clearly as though someone stood at his shoulder. It had the shape of his voice, the familiar roughness at the end of her name. It did not have the hesitation with which he spoke when he was afraid for her.
Inside the lodge a child stirred, and someone whispered for quiet. He understood then that the thing in the pond could wait. They had only to make the mistake of believing a voice they wanted to hear. He kept his hand on the latch until Seven was safely among the others. Then he moved the bolt into place.