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“She also says she’s sorry. She hates that you got hurt.”

Apology aside, she’d told Rain to tell me about the bed. Where I’d sleep. In my house. This cat was arranging two grown people, and I’d nearly missed it.

I’d been thinking about what happened at the window since I’d mended Rain’s door. Ginger’s paw on the glass. Pleased about something, and I couldn’t read what.

She’d been pleased about me.

For two years I’d put a stone in a crate. This cat had sat on the counter every market morning and watched me bring it in, then watched Rain put it in a bowl.

Then something got into the cup of tea Rain had made for me. Rain didn’t put it there. She’d never do anything like that.

The cat had been lying on the counter on that day too.

In my kitchen last week, Rain hissed at her. Don’t go there. I’d kept my back turned and let it go.

On the Old Bridge, when Rain said her apology was bigger than mine, I took it for kindness.

It was anything but.

I met Ginger’s gaze. She gave me nothing, same as through the glass.

“Thank you, Quartermaster,” I said.

She purred, rusty as a gate in need of oil, and we all breathed again.

Rain brought the soup in bowls to the table and sat closer than required.

We said nothing about the bed situation.

After we’d finished, I washed the ribbon, making it nearly yellow again.

Her hair had stayed down while she washed the dishes, but she kept shoving it aside.

I have hands that can carry four crates at a time. I have never done anything as careful as gathering Rain’s hair up off her neck.

I braided it the way I did a mane, because that was the only way I knew. It came out thick and off-center, but I tied the ribbon at the end in a bow.

“Turnip’s going to be jealous,” she whispered.

“He’ll cope.”

I left her, stepping outside, moving like an old man across the yard to the barn, where Turnip stood with his face in the corner of his stall. He wouldn’t turn his head. His hide flinched when I entered. A beast knows. He’d hurt the one who feeds him, and he’d run through it all afternoon, alone, in a corner.

I did what my father did, and his father, all the way back up the line of ogre males who’ve worked beside beasts and been hurt by them and kept working beside them. I brought him a plum from the kitchen. The last one. Her plums.

“Turnip.”

He didn’t move. I stood at his shoulder and held the plum under his nose. “A sprite came at you on your blind side. No beast alive stands still for that. There’s no debt owed here.”

He took the plum from my palm carefully and ate it. After it was gone, he sighed from his hooves up. Then he pressed his big head against my chest on the good side and leaned in.

I stood in the cold barn with both arms around his neck until the sun had sunk below the horizon.

Tomorrow was going to hurt. Tonight, I’d sleep…somewhere.

“We’ll tell her you’re sorry,” I said. “She’ll bring you plums until spring. You’ll be sick of plums.”

He blew his big breath down my collar, and I took it as agreement.