I pushed away the thought that tried to creep to the forefront of my mind: that once she had seen that I could both provide and protect, she might look on me with a more favorable glance.

I looked at the cottages with an engineer’s eye, and shook my head. They were pathetic. Yet they could be made to serve, at least for now. With timbers and logs from the nearby abandoned huts, I could shore them up to make them last the winter. Surely winter travelers on this road would welcome any sort of a shelter for the night. And the room I would build to connect them would be level and strong, the heart of a new structure that would eventually rise in place of the old. Sem was at my heels as I entered the second cottage. I was pleased to find it had a very functional-looking fireplace and chimney. Like Amzil’s home, the floor was of earth. A table with two broken legs leaned against a bed frame full of rotting straw and bugs. The table was beyond repair, but the bedframe was salvageable. I checked the inside walls of the cabin, testing the wood with my knife. Some rot, but not much. This structure was in much better condition than the first cottage, and I immediately decided I would begin my renovation here.

“Sem! Sem, where are you?” There was a frantic note to Amzil’s cry.

“He’s here with me! We’re coming!” I called back to her, and Sem piped up, “We’re coming!” in such an obvious imitation of me that I had to laugh. As we made our way through the weedy space between the huts, a very familiar smell suddenly rose to my nostrils. Looking down, I found that I was standing on the crushed remains of a small cabbage. I blinked, and recognized the top of a carrot, and there the rounded purple shoulders of a turnip pushing up from the weedy earth. We were standing in the remains of a badly choked vegetable garden. It looked as if the seeds had been randomly thrown on the soil and had sprouted haphazardly. I found another cabbage, not much bigger than my fist but sound. I gave it to Sem to carry, and pulled up both the turnip and the carrot. The carrot was a long, dark-orange root, gone woody in its second year of growth, and root maggots had left a trail on the turnip, but for all that, the good parts could be cut off and stewed down. I felt I had discovered treasure rather than some old and wormy vegetables.

I looked up from my knees to find an angry-looking Amzil bearing down on us. “What are you doing out here with my son?” she demanded.

“Seeing how sound this building is. Watch where you step! There’s a vegetable garden gone wild here.”

“You have no right…what?”

“We’re standing in a grown-over vegetable patch. I stepped on one cabbage before I realized it. But Sem has another, and I found a carrot and a turnip, too.”

Her eyes darted from her son holding the cabbage to me and back again. Conflicting emotions flashed across her face. “This is wonderful—but never again take my boy out of my sight without my permission.”

The vehemence in her voice shocked me, and I realized that however comfortable I had become here, she still regarded me as a stranger. And dangerous.

“Sem followed me,” I said quietly. I knew it was unreasonable to feel hurt or angry, yet in truth, I felt both.

“I’m…I’m sure he did. But I don’t like any of my children to wander out of my sight. There are many dangers here in the wild country.” It sounded like an excuse, not an apology.

“And you think I’m one of those dangers.” I spoke flatly.

“You might be,” she replied frankly.

“I’m not. Not to you or to your children. I thought I’d been helping you.”

“You have. You did.” She looked down at the small boy. He was frowning as he tried to follow our conversation, looking back and forth between us. “Sem, go home. There’s porridge on the table for you. Eat it up.”

The mention of food was enough to send the boy flying. He scampered off, still clutching the cabbage in his arms. When he was out of earshot, she looked back at me. Her expression was not unfriendly, but neither was it kindly. She spoke bluntly. “You have helped us. And in return, I’ve sewn your clothes for you, and allowed you to share our roof and fire, and whatever food we had. And I admit that it’s thanks to you that we’ve had more food in the last few weeks than we’ve had for some time. But—well, but I don’t wish to be in your debt. I don’t want you to start thinking that because you’ve done things for us, we owe you something. Well, I mean, I know that I do, but I won’t…that is—”

“I don’t think you’re a whore, Amzil. I won’t try to buy you with coin or food. Nor would I do any harm to any of your children. You seem to think me some sort of a monster, capable of anything!” Then the hurt did break into my voice, despite my best efforts. She looked startled. I felt embarrassed. I looked away from her. I tried desperately to think of something to say that would change the topic. I cleared my throat. “Someone stole from us last night. They took a rabbit from one of our snares. They reset it, but poorly. I could tell what had been done.”

“I’m not surprised.” She spoke quickly, as if glad to talk of something new. “It was bound to happen.” Then anger flared again in her voice. “But what can I do? If I stay up all night to watch the snares in the stump field, the rabbits won’t come. And I’ll be too tired to take care of the children by day. It’s hopeless.”

“Have you ever thought of trying to form an alliance with some of your neighbors?”

She gave me an incredulous glance. She began to walk back to her cottage and I followed her. “I told you what they are. Murderers, thieves, and rapists. I don’t trust them.”

“But your husband was a thief.” I tried to speak the words gently, but they still sounded like an accusation. “Oh, look there,” I added before she could reply. “Lettuce.”

“It doesn’t look like lettuce. It’s tall with little leaves.”

“It’s gone to seed.” I went down heavily on one knee in the sodden weeds. I broke the top off the plant and lifted it carefully, my hand cupped under the seed head. “You can save these and plant them next spring. Or you can dig up the ground and plant them now. The plants here either wintered over or reseeded themselves, so it didn’t get cold enough here to kill them completely. Actually, if you plant some now, you might get an early crop in spring. And then plant the rest of the seed after that, for more lettuce later. But always leave a few plants in the garden to go to seed, so you’ll have seed for the next season.”

“Oh,” she said faintly. She stopped walking and looked back at the overgrown garden. “I feel so stupid. It makes sense now.”

“What?”

“That they gave us seed, and told us it should be enough to last us. I had nothing to plant this spring. I was lucky enough to find some onions and potatoes growing where I’d planted them last year. I thought I’d just missed them when I harvested them.”

“It was a cruel thing they did, putting you out here without teaching you first how to grow a garden or catch a rabbit.”

“They did give us some chickens. For a short time, we had eggs. Then someone stole them and ate them, I suppose. That happened soon after we first arrived, when more people lived here.” She gave me a very uncomfortable glance. “Thank you. What’s your name?”

I realized she’d never asked me and I hadn’t told her. “Nevare Bur—” I stopped short. My father no longer claimed me. Did I wish to claim his name?

“Nevare Burr. Thank you, Nevare.”

She said my name, and for a moment I felt an odd thrill, similar to the first time that Carsina had touched my hand. She was walking in front of me and could not see my cynical smile. Of course, Nevare. Fall in love with the first woman you befriend, simply because she is willing to say your name. Ignore how she looks at you; ignore how frightened she was just a few moments ago when she thought you had lured her child away. I forced myself to confront how desperately lonely I’d become. I was so alone. As alone, I reminded myself, as Yaril. I did not need to fall to a wild schoolboy infatuation with Amzil. I had my sister and her affection to sustain me. Instead of thinking how I could change Amzil’s life if she allowed me to, I knew I should focus my efforts on creating a life for myself, one that would eventually allow me to send for Yaril.