The sausage sizzled in the pan behind me, punctuating the sudden quiet. I wasn’t sure I’d ever get used to those declarations, large and small reassurances that Kit was as taken with me as I was with him. Now, I owed him my life as well as my affections, and I would gladly give both as long as he would let me.
Smiling to myself, I took a towel from the counter and used it to remove the skillet from the flame. I ferried it to the table and piled food onto Kit’s plate first, then the rest onto mine. After returning the dish to the stovetop, I came along behind Kit and wrapped my arms around him. He leaned into the contact, and I held on long enough to inhale the scent of him before grabbing my chair and pulling it close to his.
I dropped into my seat while Kit dragged the side of his fork through one of his eggs, breaking the yolk and making golden yellow ooze across the plate.
His appetite was back in full force and, together, we polished off every bit of the meal. When he got up to wash the dishes, I went for my sketchbook, ready to enjoy a daywithout work in the smithy and wipe my mind of the things I’d too recently seen in town.
After drying the plates, Kit returned to the table and pushed his chair closer to mine. He rested his hand on my thigh and tipped his head onto my shoulder. He watched while I drew, squeezing small things into what little blank space remained in my sketchbook. On one page where I’d previously drawn a tree using the dye-stained edge as the trunk, I penciled frilled mushrooms stacked up the side of it like a staircase for small creatures to scamper up and down. Winding around existing pieces of art, I added tracks I'd seen in the snow. The delicate lines of a bird's feet crisscrossing each other as it hopped about hunting for seed, and the longer lopes from a hare, its hind legs dragging through the powder.
After a stretch of silent observation, Kit stood while muttering, “Seems as good a time as any.”
“A good time for what?”
Going to the cabinet above the sink, Kit reached inside and from the top shelf pulled out a large, flat square wrapped in brown paper. He returned to his spot beside me, then set the package on the table.
I tucked my pencil inside my sketchbook and set both aside to take Kit’s offering in both hands. It had some weight to it, and it flexed a bit, curving down at the corners when I held it up.
“What’s this for?” I glanced at Kit, who only shrugged.
“Open it.”
Unfolding the paper revealed a piece of leather, stamped around the edges with a leafy vine. I brushed my fingers across the textured surface, recognizing shapes made from the tools in the smithy.
“It's not as fine as your work.” Kit sounded sheepish as I liftedthe leather from its wrapping. It was a new sketchbook. I flipped it open to find a thick stack of smooth, creamy paper. It felt soft as velvet.
At the farm, I’d grown up doodling in the margins of the primers Mother used to school us. She would finish a lesson none too happy to find the entries embellished with wispy pencil sketches of flowery meadows and cloudy skies. Over the years, her irritation turned to interest, and she would comment on the details of the flowers’ petals and the shapes hidden in the clouds.
I ran out of room in those books, too, having illustrated every volume in our home library. Out of necessity, I found a blank book at the market in Eastcliff. It was tiny, small enough to fit in my boot, and the paper was rough, so it took practice to keep my lines straight. I'd filled it to near-bursting by the time Merrick got sick of my infatuation with the damned thing and flung it into the fireplace.
It had been my most treasured possession, and I cried for days at the loss. It had taken me months to save up for a replacement.
But this new book was a work of art in itself. It opened flat across the table, creating a canvas that begged to be decorated.
I sat in silence, feeling the crisp corners of the pages and studying the intricate handsewn binding until Kit’s nervous prompting stirred me from my reverie.
“Do you like it?” he asked.
A smile broke across my face, so wide it made my cheeks hurt. I set the sketchbook down, then threw my arms around Kit’s neck, squeezing till he grunted complaint.
I pulled back, still beaming, and scooped up the book again. “It's beautiful,” I marveled.
Sliding my pencil out of the old sketchbook, I pinched it between my fingers. Eager as I was, I couldn’t decide where to begin or with what. Many things I drew from memory, like the plants and animals I’d seen growing up on the farm. Recently, I’d tried rendering more novel sights, like the sharp, slanted buildings in Forstford, or the curved bowl of the corrie that obscured Ashpoint. But none of that felt right.
When Kit laid his head on my shoulder again, I looked down his profile, studying his stern brow and the slope of his nose. Perpetual stubble dotted his cheeks and traced the angle of his jaw. And his lips… those were my favorite part. Soft and sweet when they pressed against mine.
I drew, and Kit watched until he began to doze. His body rested heavily against me, and his breaths became deep and slow. These new pages took more time to fill, and I didn’t realize hours had passed until my fingers started to ache. I scowled at the unfinished work, not ready to stop even as pain seeped into my bones.
Grumbling, I set down the pencil and shook my hand, trying to straighten the digits stuck curled and stiff. All the shifting and shaking roused Kit, who peered over while I tugged on my stubborn fingers.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, his voice thick with sleep.
“Nothing,” I muttered. “This happens sometimes.”
After the barn fire, the doctors had given Sayla and me grim prognoses. Merrick’s threats about cutting off my hands hadn’t been far from the truth, as the risk of infection from my wounds was more danger than the fire that caused them. During the months of healing, I heard every possible outcome from lifelong nerve damage to amputation of one or more of my fingers. I’d lost sensation in a few fingertips, and my grip strength wasn’t what it mighthave been, but by good fortune or determination, I kept enough mobility to be useful around the farm and to draw with infrequent bouts of pain and cramping.
It was more irritating than anything, a nuisance I dealt with privately. It wasn’t prudent to call attention to an affliction of my own making, or to give Merrick an excuse to remind me of my mistake.
I said none of that to Kit, but with wounds as obvious as mine, some things were easy to infer. Drawing a deep breath, he sat up straight and took hold of my left hand. I remembered that night at the inn when he’d stared at my scars and asked about the fire. He'd had no judgment about it even then, only quiet understanding.
