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"Yes."

"Even if you don't know what it means yet."

"Yes."

The lamplight caught the brass at his elbow. She thought of him, climbing out of these passages with nothing changed, the work above ground still waiting.

She wanted to touch his hand. She didn't. The pulse in his wrist showed, a steady beat against the lamplight.

"We should go up," he said.

"Yes."

He stood and offered her the good hand. She took it. His fingers closed around hers, warm and certain, and she rose. The lamplight moved across the dragon-eye on the wall behind them.

They left the chamber together.

The climb back was quiet. Through the upper chamber, the passage, the larder, up into the terrace's communal space. The witches were either at chapel or in the fields. They crossed the square in the late morning light without being seen.

Halfway across the square, Lysander's hand drifted to his coat — the motion she'd seen perhaps a dozen times now, the silver flask coming up to his mouth and away again. This time he didn't bring it up, instead his hand closed on the shape of it through the fabric, paused, and dropped. He didn't look at her, and she didn't say anything.

Lance was waiting at the cottage door. He hissed once, a mild rebuke, and climbed onto her shoulder without ceremony.

Inside, Lysander barred the door and went to the hearth without speaking. Idonea sat at the table.

Her hands were cold. She thought of the carving and the old hearth and the women of her line who'd once warmed themselves in a room she'd now stood beside.

She thought of Lysander, too. The pulse in his wrist. The thing he hadn't said.

A knock came at the door near dusk.

Idonea's head snapped up from the table, her pulse leaping.

Lysander rose smoothly to answer it, one hand drifting to the hilt of his sword.

Alcaeus stood outside, his cloak still snow-flecked. His face wore the closed look. He held something wrapped in dark wool against his chest, the way a man holds a thing he hasn't decided he can give up.

"May I?" he asked.

Idonea rose from her chair, her chest tight with sudden, inexplicable dread. "Yes."

He stepped inside. Lysander withdrew to the hearth and took his coat with him, giving them the room without making a show of it. A flare of unexpected gratitude shot through her for the mercy of it.

Alcaeus stood at the centre of the floor a moment, as if he'd forgotten how to be in this cottage. Then he crossed to the table and set the bundle down. The wool was old and softened from years of handling.

"This was hers."

Idonea's heart stuttered.

She didn't move to touch it. "What is it?"

"A book. One of her workings-books. From before we were married." He didn't meet her eyes. "I kept it when I left her. I'm not certain why. I haven't opened it in years. I thought, last night, that you should have it."

The world tilted. Nellith's book. Something her mother had written in. Something her mother had touched. Her throat closed around the wanting and the fearing of it, both at once.

"Why now?" The question came out barely above a whisper.

"Because Kitsa came to me at midday." His mouth was thin. "She said Idonea has gone below the chamber and you should know it, in case Lysander does not find her in time." He drew a slow breath. "Kitsa knows what you've been doing. I would rather give you what I have before you find your way to the rest of it without me."