"He knows you."
Ursik adjusts the crate under his arm. "I'm not doing anything bad. I'm bringing the supplies. Same as every morning."
"With rope."
A pause. "That's for the —"
"Ursik."
He holds up the hand that isn't managing the crate, which is the gesture of a man who has been caught and knows it. "I had an idea."
"Of course you did." Ressa unfolds her arms to pull her coat tighter. "How exactly does checking in on traumatised women go, in your experience?"
"It's been going fine. They're warming up."
She gives him a look that, even from the side, lands with weight. "I couldn't be around Shae for weeks.Shae,Ursik. She is the warmest person in this settlement and I still flinched every time she got within arm's reach." She says it without bitterness — just as fact, the same way you'd reference weather, something that happened and has since passed. "It took me two months to even get near you."
"I'm aware of that."
"Are you? Because you're standing here with rope and a smile and I want to make sure we're calibrated."
"I swear to you," he says, and the lightness drops just slightly out of his voice, becomes something more straightforward underneath, "I'm not planning anything that'll make it worse."
Ressa looks at him for a moment that stretches. Then she sighs. "I know that. That's why I'm here instead of Falla, who would've just turned you around at the path." She falls back into step beside him. "I'm coming in with you."
I pull back from the treeline.
Not because they'd have seen me — I'm well behind the line of the trees, and neither of them was looking this direction. I pullback because the rest of the circuit still needs doing, and because standing in the trees listening to them for another minute means I'm trackingtheminstead of the perimeter, and the perimeter is what matters.
I tell myself that twice and then finish the circuit in thirty-eight steps because I'm moving faster than usual, and I'm not interested in examining why.
They're already at the front of the first cabin by the time I come around the back corner. I hear Idris's voice from the doorway — the slightly-lifted note she gets when something's surprised her pleasantly — and then Ressa's lower answer. I come around the side of the cabin and stop at the corner, where I can see the whole front without being committed to it.
Ursik spots me first. He always spots me first — I've noticed this, filed it. He has good peripheral awareness, which is useful information. He turns toward me with that smile, the one he aims at everyone and appears to manufacture in quantity, and raises a hand.
"Morning."
I stare at him.
He lowers his hand. The smile stays, a fraction more effortful now.
"What are you doing here?" I say it flat. Not quite a question. Questions suggest I need information from him, and I don't want him thinking that.
He turns the crate to show me it. "Supplies."
"You brought company."
"Ressa wanted to come." He glances at Ressa, who is watching this exchange with her arms folded and the patient look of someone prepared to let it play out. "I also —" He sets the crate down on the step, which puts him a fraction lower, and I notice that he does this consciously. Takes up less height whenhe can. I've seen him do it before and I still don't fully trust it, but I notice it. "I actually came to talk to you."
I keep my face even. "Me."
"You." He straightens, not to his full height — keeps something contained about it, which costs him something, I can see that. Takes deliberate effort, the containing. "Falla's working with the others on the healing side. Saela and Shae are keeping the supply lines going, making sure everyone's got what they need. That's all sorted." He pauses. "But I thought — it might help. If someone offered to teach."
The word sits in the air between us.
I look at him. At the rope on his shoulder, which I'd clocked the moment he came around the corner. At his hands, which are open and down at his sides with the self-consciousness of someone who's been toldopen hands, keep them visible.At the way he's standing with just slightly too much careful space between us.
"Teach what."
