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kept in a pot by the stove. She sprinkled the powdery stalks over the ember, waiting for them to kindle into tiny yellow flames.
    Deergrass, to bring vision and caution to her day. She’d reached for it often since the traveling man came to her. She’d felt the need for careful steps around him, for delicate maneuvers. And she wasn’t quite willing to ignore the Sisters’ rumors that deergrass wove its way into a man’s heart, bound him to the hearth where first he smelled the weed’s clean sharpness.
    She turned to look at Tovin, and she was not surprised to see him gazing back at her. She added a clutch of small twigs to the fire, and then she stood, brushing her hands against her apron. “Don’t speak to me. Hold on to your thoughts.”
    â€œI would have helped you with the fire.”
    â€œHush.”
    â€œI would have!”
    â€œYou would have made a mess.” His young lungs were strong. He would have sent ash swirling across the floor. “You should be concentrating, not talking.”
    â€œAh, yes. My morning interrogation.”
    â€œInterrogation?” Despite herself, despite her intention to keep him quiet and focused, she snorted. “Do all you northerners fear questions so?”
    He smiled and shrugged. He was always relaxed when he awoke, lazy and soft, as if he only donned his sarcastic guise with his clothes. She crossed back to the lavender-scented pallet and stretched out beside him. His scarred hands folded around her, wandering down her flanks, but she stilled him with her own twisted fingers.
    â€œGo ahead, then,” she said. “Look into the flames.” His fingers walked up her arm. “Don’t try to distract me, traveling man.” He sighed in mock frustration, but he directed his attention to the hearth. “Tell me,” she urged. “Before you forget them.”
    He was silent for a long minute, and she forced herself to lie still beside him. She measured out her breath, slow and even. She was trying to support him, trying to assist. It was important for him to remember, to speak. After several deep breaths and silence, though, she could not keep herself from prompting: “Do you recall anything? Even images, if you can’t remember an entire dream.”
    â€œI’ve told you, Kella. I don’t dream.”
    â€œEveryone dreams. You must train yourself to remember what you see.”
    â€œI can tell you anything that I see with my waking eyes. I’m not some lazy child. I know how to use my senses.”
    â€œI know you’re not lazy. I also know that you’re not concentrating.”
    â€œKella, why is this so important to you?”
    Why? She wasn’t sure how to answer him. Perhaps it was important because she had always shared her own dreams–first with her mother, then with her younger sister, then with her long-ago husband. Perhaps it was important because of the answers she had found to her own questions, answers lurking in the twisted hallways of sleep. Perhaps it was important because there was true witching power in dreams, true energy and force that could be helped along by wisely-chosen herbs.
    Perhaps it was important because she thrilled to hear the player man speak, thrilled to feel the rumble of his words rising in his chest, echoing down her spine.
    â€œLook into the flames, Tovin. Concentrate, and remember your dreams.”
    Kella listened to him breathe beside her. She heard the fire whisper on the hearth, the nibble of the small flames as they worked their way through the dry wood. She heard a breeze pick up in the trees outside, the rustle of leaves and the rub of one branch against another. No words, though. No dreams. After a long silence, Tovin sighed. “Nothing.”
    â€œNothing,” she repeated.
    â€œI’ve tried, Kella.”
    â€œOf course you have.” She tried to keep her tone matter-of-fact.
    â€œAs well as you have,” he