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“Quite right.”

Kellyn winks at the boy, a promise to tell him all about it later.

Kyren turns to the three of us at the end of the table. “When I grow up, I’m going to be a mercenary like my brother.”

“You most certainly will not,” Mrs. Derinor says. “It’s bad enough that I have to spend my days worrying over Kellyn. Horrid profession.”

I think Kellyn senses a lecture coming on, because he changes the subject, asking his da about the crops and farming.

We mostly keep silent during dinner. There’s too much to observe to bother with talking. At one point, a fight between two boys breaks out, but Mrs. Derinor stops it with a single look.

There are three bedrooms in the house. One for Mr. and Mrs. Derinor and the babies, one for the girls, and one for the boys.

Kellyn assures his parents we will be fine sleeping outside. In fact, the family has a few hammocks set up in the trees. I’ve never slept in one before, but I find it much more comfortable than the ground.

It isn’t until I’m wrapped in homespun blankets and staring at the branches above that I realize I didn’t feel panicked once today.

I felt safe.

Children don’t seem to spark my anxieties the way adults do, and Mr. and Mrs. Derinor were too kind for me to worry about them.

So many people in that house, and yet, it felt like home. It felt like safety.

I can’t imagine why Kellyn ever left.

I rise early to visit the local smithy the next morning.

He seems confused at first by my appearance and even more perplexed when I ask if I can have any leftover scraps of metal he has no use for. Used nails. Shavings. Tools that didn’t turn out right.

“You an apprentice?” he asks me. The man is clean-shaven, perhaps in his early forties, and he seems kind.

“Something like that. Would it also be all right if I borrowed your kiln?”

“What exactly are you making?”

“I’m not quite sure. But hopefully, something to keep us safe.”

He thinks me odd—I can tell by the rise of his brow and how he turns his face away—but he humors me.

I help tidy his workspace in exchange for his help and materials. This smithy works in iron alone—he hasn’t the supplies to fashion steel, but I don’t think that will be a problem.

So long as the magic decides to cooperate.

I alternate between days at the forge and days at the farm in the coming weeks. The Derinors need all the helping hands they can get, and I’d feel like a monster if I ate their food without helping with the chores.

Farming is hard yet satisfying work. We wake before the sunis quite up and go to the fields, where we pull weeds from the dirt, fill in gopher holes, and make sure the water supply gets to the end of the field. We shovel manure from the horses into the soil that’s soon to be planted, pluck fruit from the already ripened trees, help tend to the livestock.

As someone who’s come from a life where I buy all the food and clothes I need, it’s absolutely fascinating to see how a family provides for everything entirely on their own.

Kahlia teaches Temra and me how to sheer sheep, spin the wool into yarn, dye it, and knit it—though for the most part it’s just us staring at her in fascination. Knitting is far too complicated to pick up right away.

We learn to make delicious meals with the barest of ingredients, how to stitch up holes in our clothing, how to feed the babies.

There are of course the less fun tasks, such as changing the cloth diapers or hauling water from the river, washing laundry, and such. But we do it all with a smile on our faces. So relieved to finally be safe. To finally feel like we can breathe.

Mrs. Derinor has to be the sweetest soul on the planet. As if it weren’t enough that she manages all her children, she also bakes sweets to take to the children of the village widows. She loans out her children to help with household chores for the elderly, even takes in little ones when their parents are out in the fields at times.

In the evenings, Temra and I sit off to the side while Petrik tells stories to the children. He’s so well read that he has an endless supply of tales to share with Kellyn’s eager siblings. Storiesof valiant lady knights saving princes in dragon-guarded towers, stories of mermaids in the sea, or gryphon-riding armies.