18. Brett

As long as I could remember, winter was the single thing that made me feel truly, entirely helpless.

No one in Nemeda dealt well with the cold. Hollow bones, my mother used to joke when I was a child, and while it wasn't true, it wasn't too far off the mark. We just weren't made to handle snow and ice, and since we rarely got more than a sprinkling of snow once or twice a year, it didn't pose a life-threatening problem all that often.

This winter was different, and for the first time in years, I was seriously concerned for my whole clan.

And then along came Paris, with his boundless optimism in face of the swirling snowflakes, which I'd always viewed with concern before.

Somehow, when they were gathering in his eyelashes, and he actually stuck out his tongue to catch one, they seemed less threatening. Like a wolf being patted and fed a treat by his Owl Clan handler, the predator that haunted people's nightmares suddenly seemed entirely benign and almost friendly.

Yes, the Owl Clan kept wolves.

No, I didn't understand why.

Balthazar had offered to help train some to corral sheep, and while I was still intrigued by the notion, I wasn't sure I could talk my shepherds into allowing literal wolves in the fields. Maybe Paris, with his hopeful innocence and complete belief that we could easily handle things that terrified me down to my bones, could talk them into it.

"Oh come on," he chided Owen, who was bundled up in the wagon, watching the strange wooden runners like he was worried they would fall off any moment. "You did a great job. It's perfect. If we work something out, maybe I can get you a copy of the plans for the way my people do it, and make all the wagons convertible to sleighs in the winter. It's really useful and takes less wood. And that way every family had both without having to buy two carriages."

It was an impressive idea. I hadn't believed Urial had anything to offer us, but there it was, something remarkable they had invented. Sure, we would only need them one winter in twenty, but when we needed them, it was like this—a matter of life and death.

The wagon seemed to move even faster than they did on wheels, the horses struggling less to pull it over the snow, and no wheels getting held up in crevices or slowing down to a crawl on hills. If anything, it almost went too fast going down hills, the horses rushing to keep ahead of it.

It wasn't even close to sundown when we pulled up outside the widow's cabin, and we had plenty of time to pack up her and her pigeons.

The problem came in a moment later, when she opened her front door to us, wrapped in a dozen layers of clothes, her back window hanging open. She wouldn't look me in the eye, and shook her head. "Still two out," she said, biting her lip. "I—I can't. I?—"

"Why don't we pack up the ones that are here?" Paris asked, gentle and friendly rather than as stern as I'd been preparing to be. "Maybe they'll be here by the time we're done."

She seemed worried, but agreed, and led us over to the north wall of the house, just a few feet from the fireplace, and motioned to the pigeons.

Paris gave a low whistle, impressed.

They were impressive, I supposed. Almost twenty pigeons was a lot, and she kept them all together in an enormous enclosure built into the wall of her cottage.

"How, um, how do we take them with us?" he finally asked.

We had an answer, of course, because this wasn't the first time we'd had to evacuate the widow Laurence, but it was still a logistical mess, because a single cage big enough for that many pigeons was huge. So we'd made her four separate ones that she kept stacked outside, and before anyone could answer the question, Brandon came in, brandishing the first two in his hands.

So started the process of recaging the birds. She was very particular about which birds went together, so we mostly let her do it, or followed instructions when she went to rub her hands together over the fire.

After a moment, Paris frowned at the fire and asked where the wood pile was. She pointed him at it, and a moment later he was back with three extra logs. While we caged pigeons, he added them, one at a time, stoking the fire until it was blazing merrily and the whole building was at least warm enough to survive in.

She bit her lip, frowning, even as she leaned into the warmth. "I didn't want to use up all the wood and have to ask for more."

I scowled at that. "Do you need more than we've been setting for you? You can always tell us, Esmerelda. We'll just chop an extra cord every spring and make sure you've got plenty."

She ducked her head and mumbled something about putting people out, but then sighed and nodded. "These old bones don't keep warm like they used to."

Paris smiled at her, understanding and gentle, but firm. "Always better to have too much than not enough. You can use last year's wood, but you can't use next year's."

I swallowed hard, and had to hold every muscle in my body tense to keep from grabbing him into a hug. Or kissing him.

That wasn't what we did.

He was a diplomat, even if neither of us seemed to understand what that meant in practice. He wasn't one of my people, and he certainly wasn't mine to touch.

Instead, I nodded. "That's right. Always better to have extra rather than not enough. And the clan wants to provide it. We'd always prefer to do more work than necessary than have you suffer."

She ducked her head and went back to rehoming the pigeons, but I was sure we'd be cutting extra wood for her in the spring. Also, I'd send a wagonload of it back with her when this emergency was over, so she wouldn't have to be cold this winter. We were already saving wood because of how people were staying together rather than everyone in their own houses, so we had plenty to cover.

When we finished caging the pigeons and packing a bag of clothes, though, there were still two pigeons out. I knew without a doubt that she wouldn't leave them to arrive to an empty house and no way to get in. No shelter.

The birds were as much her family as the clan, and I wouldn't ask it of her.

What I wasn't expecting was for Paris to smile at them and say, "Well, this is what the snowshoes are for. You three get back to town and settle in, and Brett and I will wait for the birds." He glanced out the window at the sky, shaking his head and turning back with a concerned frown. "You should get going right away. It's going to get even worse. You've got blankets to cover the cages, right?"

We stripped the bed and nearly emptied the closet and as soon as the cages were covered, it went just as he'd said. Owen didn't even look to me for permission, simply took Paris's order as fact, loaded up the cart, set Esmerelda between himself and Brandon, and headed out.

I wasn't sure if that worried me, or pleased me. And if the answer was the second, why?

I didn't have much time to muse on it, though, as Paris was already bustling around the cabin, pulling out the extra linens and pressing them into the edges of the windows, stoking the fire again and adding another log, closing the back window far enough that the pigeons could still push in, but it wasn't thrown wide to let the cold inside.

Then he remade the bed with the extra sheets and blankets in the closet. When I raised a brow, he shrugged. "I mean, I could be wrong, but I think the storm is going to keep getting worse. I don't think they'll be back tonight. And we might be able to make it back by walking, but..." He glanced at the bed again, flushed a little, and shrugged, all without looking back at me.

We were probably going to be staying the night, was what he was saying. In a single-room cabin with one bed.