“I thought you wanted to break the rules?”

“Not that one!”

You’re choosy all of a sudden. Dag rubbed his lips, reminded that Remo hadn’t been there to witness Cress. Or Hod’s original injury, either. Dag steeled himself and gave a brisk description of both incidents, finishing, “With Hod beguiled by me already, the last thing I want to do is make it worse. What I don’t know is what would happen if a beguilement was divided amongst two Lakewalkers. I’m hoping—wondering, leastways—if the division might halve the problem.”

Remo’s lip jutted in suspicion. “Are you trying to foist this off on me?”

“No,” said Dag patiently, “I’m trying to solve a groundwork problem. For myself, yes, but if I can solve it for myself, there might be a chance I’d solve it for a lot of other medicine makers as well. It seems worth a shot.”

“I thought you were a patroller.”

“Old habits die hard. Did you think I quit only because I ran mad over a pretty little farmer girl a third my age?” Fawn raised her brows ironically at him; he tipped her a wink. “I’m also becoming—trying to become—a maker.” I’m just not sure of what. “Take a good look at Hod’s knee, down to the ground, and tell me if I’m wrong about that ambition.”

Reluctantly, Remo knelt down next to Dag beside Hod, who gave him a worried smile. He glanced aside at Dag and opened his ground for the first time in days. Dag saw Remo’s wince as the unveiled farmer grounds pressed upon him: the dark old knots of the watching Bo, the mess of Hod, Fawn’s brightness. It took him a moment to draw his focus in upon the injury. When he did, his brows climbed. “You did all that? Verel doesn’t pull breaks together that tight!”

“I could have wished for Verel. Or someone, to guide and guard me. I almost groundlocked myself.”

Remo’s ground, open to Dag at last, was in about the uproar he expected. Upset patroller—he knew the flavor well. Sometimes he regretted that reading grounds did not give access to thoughts, although most of the time he had better sense. We already know too much about each other. Who knew what Remo would perceive of him? “What’s on your mind?” he asked gently.

Remo licked his lip, still a little sore. “I don’t know what you want from me!” he blurted. “You didn’t have any use for me before.”

Dag almost said, I just told you what I wanted, but hesitated. “How do you figure?”

Remo hung his head, and muttered, “Never mind. It’s stupid.” He made to lumber up, but Dag held out his spread hand, stop. Remo drew breath. “When you got in trouble the other day with that fish. You called for Whit. The farmer. Not for me. Remo the botch-up. Well,” he added fiercely, “why would you?”

Remo, who hadn’t been able to save his partner from trouble before? Leaving aside the flash of jealousy about Whit, Remo was wounded, it seemed, in his oversensitive conscientiousness. Dag couldn’t hand him back his self-esteem gift-wrapped. He wondered if it was time for the full tale of Wolf Ridge again. He was reminded of Mari’s trick of hauling him and his maiming along when she wanted to shame local farmers into pitching in with pay or supplies after a malice kill in their area, and grimaced in distaste. No. Parading his old griefs to shame Remo was not the right road; Remo had shame enough for two already. You’re making this too hard, old patroller. Keep it simple.

“You were on your oar. Whit was off duty. That’s all.” Not everything is about you, youngster, though I know you can’t see that right now. He was also reminded of Fawn’s farmer joke about the parents’ curse: May you have six children all just like you. Was there an equivalent patrol captain’s curse? That would explain a lot…

Remo swallowed. “Oh.” A flush bloomed and faded in his face, but some of the tension went out of him.

Dag refrained from pointing out that he’d have yelled for Remo before Hawthorn or Hod, lest the touchy Pearl Riffle boy just think himself called the second-best of a bad lot. Tact, old patroller. They were getting somewhere, here.

Remo’s hand went out toward Hod’s knee, then drew back. “Is he going to end up following me around like he does you?”

Dag rejected both If I knew, I wouldn’t have to test it and He can’t follow both of us, leastways as answers. He glanced down at Hod, who was staring up anxiously. “Why don’t you ask?” Otherwise you’re about to do intimate groundwork upon a person you haven’t spoken to directly since you came into the room.

Remo reluctantly looked Hod in the face. “Are you going to get stuck on me?” he demanded.

Hod did that yes/no headshake again, as confusing to Remo as to everyone else. “Dunno?” He offered after a moment, “Don’t want to. But my knee hurts all throbby, and I want to help Dag. Don’t you want to help Dag?”

Remo scratched his head, glanced sideways. “I guess I do.”

Dag had talked young patrollers through their first fuzzy ground-giftings before; Remo gave him no surprises on that score. The actual transfer was the work of an instant. Hod gasped as the palpable warmth eased his joint. Dag gave Hod some stern warnings about taking better care of himself hereafter, and no more tricks. Hod shook his head hard and unambiguously at that one.

Whit, Berry, and Hawthorn came in then, cheeks pink from the night chill, to put away their assorted equipment. Dag, feeling as drained as if it had been him rather than Remo to give the ground reinforcement, sagged wearily into a chair by the hearth and let Fawn explain to the boat boss just what all had been going on in here, which she did with an accuracy almost as embarrassing to Remo as to Hod. Since she managed to do this while simultaneously feeding everyone warm apple pie, however, they all got over it pretty smoothly.

Dag was then treated to an entirely unexpected half-hour of listening to a lot of farmers sitting around over plates of crumbs seriously discussing problems of Lakewalker-farmer beguilement not as dark magical threat but as something more like navigating a channel that had just had all its snags and sand bars shifted by a flood. Save for Fawn and Whit, their ideas were confused and their suggestions mostly useless; it was their tones of voice that subtly heartened him. Remo, hearing mainly the confusion, at first folded his arms and looked plagued, but then was drawn despite himself into what Dag suspected were his first halting efforts to explain Lakewalker disciplines to outsiders.

The party broke up for bed with the woes of the world unsolved, but Dag felt strangely satisfied nonetheless.

Fawn, passing Hod, caught him on the shoulder, and said, “You know, you could have come out and asked for a turn on Whit’s bow, too, same as Hawthorn. Try it next time.”

Hod looked startled; his lips peeled back in a grin over his crooked teeth, and he bobbed his head in a gratified nod. Had he just needed an invitation? What brooding over a purely imagined exile had led him to the wall? What distress was so painful that such a brutal self-harm seemed a better choice? Dag, wondering, managed to add a, “Good night, Hod. Sleep hard,” to Fawn’s shrewd words, which won another gratified head-bob and a flush of pleasure. Following Fawn forward, Dag blew out his breath in contemplation.

After calling Hawthorn to come collect his raccoon, who after its nap now wanted to romp, they curled around each other in their warming nest. Fawn murmured, “How’s your oat doing?”

Surprised, Dag rubbed his left arm. “I’d almost forgotten it. Huh. It seems to be converted already. Hardly anything left there but a little warm spot. Maybe tomorrow I’ll try ten oats.”

“I was thinking, two.”

“Five?” He hesitated. “I think I’m glad you talked me out of that tree.”

“Uh-huh,” she said dryly. He could feel her sleepy smile against his shoulder. She added after a moment, “You really got Remo going tonight. If only we could get him to quit confusing farmers with their livestock, I think he’d be a decent sort.”