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past a little shingle farmhouse slumped, broken-backed, into a shaggy green hillside. Weathered cedar shakes caught the light that angled between fluffy clouds, silver over gray like the wings of a moth. The roadcut ran black through moist earth on the sunrise side of the house. Aethelred could make out the tea-stained gleam of broken bone in the dark, living soil.
    A little north of the Ailee resettlement, just as Cahey had said. Not that the kid would have told him if he’d known Aethelred planned on coming here. And Selene’s elemental loyalty would never stretch to telling Aethelred where she’d tracked Cahey down if she thought he didn’t want Aethelred to know.
    Aethelred shrugged. Some people, righteous as they were, didn’t possess much sense.
    I’m getting too old for so damned much walking.
    He kept on down the lane.
    He was here to see about a girl.
    She was outside, hanging sheets up on a line, her copper-colored hair catching plasticky glints off the day. The image didn’t remind the old preacher of his childhood: there hadn’t been much in the way of sunlight or clean sheets hung out to dry in Eiledon. Before times changed, anyway, and the soil and the sea came back to life.
    He grinned to himself. Things were different now.
    He didn’t make a lot of noise coming up the lane to the gate, but she turned around anyway, pushing escaping hair back off the eyepatch that punctuated an ugly, haggled scar. Her hand dropped to the pistol at her belt, so he thumped his staff on the ground. She hesitated. He rewarded her with a cheery wave.
    “Hello the house!” he called out. “Got a drink for a mendicant man?”
    She dusted her other hand on her trousers, leaving a loamy smear on canvas. He saw her watching his face to see what he made of the scars.
    They were pretty bad. Not as bad as Aethelred’s, but he wasn’t a pretty redheaded girl of oh-about-twenty-two. And he still had both eyes. Shame about hers.
    Her brow creased—with concern, not concentration. When she finally nodded, it carried an air of resignation.
    “Come around back,” she said, not taking her hand off the pistol. “We’ve got a well.”
    We. He glanced around. A small gray cat coiled through the woodpile and a chicken scratched in the hardpacked yard. Aethelred hadn’t yet gotten over marveling at the existence of so many plants and animals. There sure hadn’t been any before. As miracles ran, he allowed, Muire had done pretty good.
    Aethelred didn’t think that anybody lived here but this young woman—too young to remember Eiledon, and the life there bounded on all sides by the Desolation. But it was all right with him if she wanted to lie a little for safety’s sake.
    He wasn’t an angel, after all.
    After he’d drunk from the dipper he turned and handed it back. She hung it up on the yellow wooden wellcover while he studied her profile. She was damn pretty, really, if you didn’t mind the eyepatch and the fading cut lines on her arms and face. Interesting nose and an interested expression. Freckles on slightly sunburned skin, and all that red hair braided back away from her face, except where it was draggled with sweat and getting away from her. Not hiding behind it. That took courage, too.
    Provisionally, Aethelred thought Cahey was an idiot. Well, he knew Cahey was an idiot; he’d as good as raised the kid. But after a life spent tending bar and lifting Burdens, Aethelred fancied himself a pretty good snap judge of character. And he hadn’t thought Cahey was enough of an idiot to walk away from a girl like this one.
    He said, “I hope you don’t mind if I ask you a question.”
    She stiffened a little, but didn’t look ready to snap. Aethelred took it for permission. Something about her, the lift of her chin when she felt herself challenged, reminded him of someone he used to care for. It was not until she snapped her head aside to toss her braid back that he identified who, however, and understood abruptly why