“How’s your sister?” I asked him, when he’d washed his hands.

“Got married last week,” he said. “She’s grown-up and he’s grown-up and they didn’t see any reason to wait.”

“She’s gone up to Canada?”

Clayton nodded. “Feels kind of lonely at our house. My mother even commented on that.”

There was a little pause before he added, “How is your sister?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “That makes me sad, but considering—well, not what she did, but how she did it—maybe it’s for the best. Maybe she and her Hans will survive the war. Maybe not.”

“You not going to fight?”

“It’s not my war. New America is raising a militia just in case we get overrun, they say, but I don’t think that’s their real plan.”

“What do you think they aim to do?”

“I think they want Texoma, and maybe some of the land Canada took at their border.”

“Will that be your war?” He leaned forward, and the fire glinted on his blond hair.

“This may sound stupid. But I feel like I’ve had my war.”

He thought about that, then nodded. “I understand.”

“Thanks. Oh, I just remembered! Here’s your money.” I got it out of the coffee can I’d kept it in. I’d made up what I spent in supplying game to the two local restaurants that used anything besides cows and chicken.

“Thanks,” I said again, and handed it to him.

He accepted it without comment and put it in his pocket. I had a strong feeling he’d forgotten all about it. “You know I didn’t come here thinking you owed me money,” he said after a moment.

I nodded. We sat there until the stew was done and the cornbread out of the oven, and then we ate.

It was good, and it was peaceful. We did the dishes, and then it seemed like the most natural thing in the world to take him to my bedroom.

When we’d gotten to the point, for a little while I felt awkward and odd, after being with Eli for so long.

It was like learning a different language.

But soon, it seemed to come so easy to my tongue.

“You have to go back today?” I asked the next morning.

“Nope. My mom’s good running the farm, at least for a week. After that, she gets pretty restless.”

So he stayed.

“Felicia said you had feelings for me, but I didn’t believe her,” I said after a couple of days.

“That’s one thing she was right about.”

“What about you needing strong magical power to add to your bloodline? Not that I expect anything,” I said hastily, “but you were heading for higher ground, so to speak.”

“You feel like magic to me,” Clayton said.

No one had ever said that to me. Anything like that. All of a sudden, I realized this might be a serious thing, and I was speechless.

“I’m still married,” I felt compelled to say.

“You’ll be declared dead in the Holy Russian Empire next week.”

“What?”

“Usually, when someone vanishes, it takes five years for them to be declared dead,” Clayton told me. “But since there was a witness to you getting washed overboard, and the tsar was interested in speeding it up, it’ll be done.”

“If I’m dead, I can’t be married to Eli, I guess.”

“I guess not.”

“I’m glad you told me.” But I looked at him doubtfully.

“I was hoping Eli would have,” he said. “The only reason I waited.”

“What does this mean to you?” I had to know where this was going.

“It means that someday I’d like you to visit Virginia, if I don’t get drawn into this war that’s brewing. I’m doing my best not to. All my magic is for the farm, for growing things, not killing. If I can keep the farm producing, I can send food to our troops.”

“No one in their right mind wants to go to war,” I said. I imagined my sister had found that out by now.

“Do you think you’d like to see Virginia?” Clayton looked pretty anxious, for the first time.

“I might,” I said. I smiled. “After I’m legally dead, you can meet my parents.”

“And your little brother?”

“If you’re real lucky.”

“I’m already lucky,” he said, and smiled back.

After Clayton left, it felt funny the first day, and then I was back to normal.

When I went down to see Mother and Jackson and Sam, my mother led with, “I hear you got a man up there. You not going to bring him down here?”

I told them about Clayton. I told them about being dead in the HRE.

“Good,” my stepfather said, right away. “You can never go back there again, and that’s fine with us.”

My mother nodded, and she made Sam wave his little hand.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen,” I said. I’d been sure before and look where that had gotten me.

“Who does?” my mother said, and for a moment she looked sad. She was remembering finding out she was pregnant at fifteen, and that the man who’d caused it was long gone.

“If Clayton gets pulled into this war, I’m not going up to visit him,” I said. “No point.”

My mother nodded. “But if you have a chance to be happy, you take it,” she said, her voice hard. “You grab it with both hands.”

Jackson handed me a newspaper that he’d folded and left on the table.

I flattened it out. The headline was big and black. “HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE DECLARES WAR,” the print screamed.

I closed my eyes for a minute, knowing at least a few people I knew in the HRE would not be coming back.

Jackson and Mother were tensed, waiting for what I’d say.

Some thoughts and feelings that had been rolling around in my head came together to make certainty.

Since I’d gotten back to Segundo Mexia, I hadn’t looked for a gun crew to join. I thought I’d just needed to get over all the events that had happened at the last Wizards’ Ball. But I realized I’d changed.

Now that I wasn’t on a gun crew, I didn’t feel certain I’d die any time I went out on a job. That made a big difference.

I had a new horizon.