James didn't look up. "He came up on his own. I didnae invite him." A beat. "I didnae discourage him either."
Fox's ear twitched. He did not move.
"He chose ye," Catriona said. She came to the bedside and sat, pressing two fingers to his wrist to check his pulse. "He doesnae do that quickly."
James considered this with visible satisfaction. "He's countin' something now though."
He nodded toward Fox, who had descended from the bed and begun pacing the length of the room in slow, deliberate circuits.
"He does that too," she said. "He's checkin' the room."
"For what?"
"Threats. Exits. Where the warmest spot is."
James considered this seriously. "Uncle Anthony does that too."
She kept her expression neutral. "Does he?"
"Aye. When he walks into a room, he always looks at the windows first. Then the doors." James watched Fox complete another circuit. "He taught me to do it. He says it's how ye keep people safe."
She moved her fingers to his ribcage, feeling the rise and fall. "Breathe slowly for me." She listened. Better, the wheeze lighter, the effort less visible. "Good. Again."
He obeyed.
"Are ye going to stay?"
She glanced up. He was looking at her directly, with the particular steadiness of a child who had learned to ask the things adults danced around.
"Until ye're better," she said.
"And after?"
"After I'll go back to the glens."
He was quiet a moment. "The fox likes it here," he said. As if offering an argument.
She looked at Fox, who had stopped his circuit and was sitting in the patch of afternoon light from the window with his eyeshalf-closed and his tail curled around his feet. The picture of a creature that had decided on its location.
"He likes warmth," she said. "He'd like anywhere with a fire."
James looked unconvinced. "He near bit Callum yesterday."
She raised an eyebrow. "Really?"
"Callum tried to put him outside." James's tone made the verdict on this perfectly clear. "Fox disagreed."
"Aye," she said. "He would."
She stood, smoothed his blanket, checked the angle of the shutters. "Sleep before supper. Yer lungs do their best work when ye're restin'."
"Nobody has ever said that."
"Well, I'm telling ye now."
He lay back in one motion, boneless the way only children managed, and pulled the blanket to his chin with both fists, not for warmth, but for the grip of it.
Within minutes, his breathing had settled into the deeper rhythm of genuine sleep, and she took her satchel and left him to it.
