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Ginger crouched in one of my freshly plowed rows, unhurt. Up on the wall, a tea jug broke on stone.

The furrow line ran true behind us, then went wild for one turn’s length where the mishap had happened, and my side was wet under my shirt.

“It’ll be alright,” I told Turnip. A spooked beast could make a second accident. He shook all down his hide and let me approach his head. I held his cheeks, my forehead on his long face, and we breathed together. “Not your fault. Wicked sprite. No worries.”

Rain rushed across the open field to join us, arriving as white as milk with her boots covered in mud. Somewhere under the ringing in my ears, I realized she wasn’t afraid of the beast at all.

“Sit down,” she said, her hands fluttering between us.

“Furrow’s not⁠—”

“Goran Brack, you’re bleeding through your shirt. Sit.”

The world wobbled and came back, so I did as she asked. Demanded. Same thing.

“Ginger,” she barked. “Get Aris as fast as you have ever moved in your life.”

The cat leaped across the fields, which told me more about my injury than the ache did.

Aris came within the hour, riding double behind Nastru Weatherby on a horse. By then, I sat in my kitchen, sipping tea, trying not to notice my blood running across my hip to paint the floor red.

Aris sews like her sister bakes, quick and even, with no wasted motion, guiding the needle with magic.

“The horn caught the muscle over two ribs,” she said, frowning at the gash. “It’s long but shallow. If it had turned two fingers in—” She magically tied off a stitch. “It didn’t. You’ll live.”

Finished, she placed her things back inside her basket and stepped away, giving me a stern look.

“These are the terms,” she said. “No plowing. No hauling. No beam work. You will lift nothing heavier than a teapot for two weeks.”

“The field’s half-done. Frost⁠—”

“The field will be plowed by the village, in one morning, the moment I mention it at the Silver Bell. You know it, so we’ll skip the argument and come to the same decision. Next term. No ladders.”

I frowned.

“You sleep in the loft,” she said. “I’ve heard all about your arrangement. Fourteen or so rungs, pulling your weight on that side twice each day? Absolutely not.”

“The loft’s⁠—”

“Above the ground. You have a house. It has a bed in it. The two of you are grown. The county already talks, and my professional interest ends with these stitches. Sort it out however you like, but you are not using that ladder.”

She left, Nastru taking her back on his horse. The kitchen stayed quiet.

Rain stood at the stove with her back to me, reheating soup, stirring it hard. Her shoulders had shot up around her ears. Her boots were still muddy, and her hands were not steady on the spoon.

All that, for me.

I sat at my table, aching and no use to anyone, and watched her be wrecked about it.

No one had ever stirred a soup angrily on my account.

Rain went still, then turned.

Ginger sat in the doorway. She’d come back to the house with her usual boldness flown. Her attention remained on Rain.

“Ginger says you can have the bed,” Rain said. “She’s, hm… She’s saying quite a lot, actually. Give me a moment.” She listened, her face reflecting a variety of emotions. “She says the sprite started it. She finished it.”

Ginger walked the length of the kitchen, her tail low, and placed my witch’s yellow hair ribbon, muddy and frayed, on my boot. She sat beside it and looked up at me, gold-eyed, unblinking.