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For once the house was quiet. Leeba had been up all night sobbing as only toddlers could, and Norina had been up with her. They were both sleeping now, exhausted. The year felt exhausted too. Winter had almost given up but the rains—and mud—had not come, leaving the cottage feeling damply cold and tinier every day.
Zanja sat by the hearth, unsettled by the silence. Perhaps she had become too accustomed to the noise of their busy household after all her years of solitude and wandering. It seemed improbable certainly that Zanja was part of a household—married, the Shaftali would say—partly responsible for a child, with this odd mix of partners. Nothing like the clanhouses of her own people, nothing either like the Shaftali's usual arrangements.
Nor had they yet settled into anything comfortable. Leeba would be two years old soon, and their arrangement was almost as old, but her parents' mix of elemental talents and logics might never truly balance out. Zanja had resigned herself to that. The occasional upheavals—and arguments—were worth the rest of it.
This winter in particular, J'han being away helping sick folk didn't help. Norina had decided to parent, but she could not decide to stop being Norina.
Karis came into the room. "Zanja." She sank into a chair. "It will be another week until the rains arrive."
Looking up at her, Zanja wanted to put her hands in the tangle of Karis's hair, but she also shuddered to think of touching anyone or anything just then. Instead she nodded, accepting the information, as little as she wanted to.
Appearing in the doorway, Medric declared, "We must walk into town!"
Zanja and Karis both blinked at him.
"Master seer," Karis started to say.
He flapped his hand at her. "We must."
"The snow—" Zanja said.
Medric pushed his glasses up his nose and frowned at them.
"I suppose you've had a vision?" Karis said, bemused.
"Of us wallowing in the snowdrifts," Zanja said, but she got up to fetch her coat. Perhaps Medric had had a vision. "Is Emil coming?"
"No." The firelight glinted on Medric's spectacles as he craned his head to watch her. He grinned. "He claims that someone must stay here in case Leeba wakes before Norina—or the other way around. However, he is in the middle of reading a book."
Karis stood, looming over Medric and Zanja alike. "All right," she said, generally, and strode into her and Zanja's room.
Zanja pulled on boots, coat, scarf, gloves, hat. She helped Medric with his scarf and found his gloves for him.
"Perhaps you should bring your glyph cards," Medric suggested.
Zanja frowned at him. He smiled, at his most inscrutable.
Returning, Karis said, "I'm ready." Her coat was getting thin, Zanja noticed worriedly. The wind must be getting in. Although Karis's sensations had returned after she broke her habit of smoke, she had never learned to complain.
Medric led them out into the cold. A raven arked and flapped down from the roof to join them, winging over the treetops toward town. The sky was low and grey, like a second roof, and the cold a damp one. It snuck in Zanja's collar and down her back. She rubbed her gloved hands together.
Together they tromped through the snow, damp with the coming spring, past their orchard and on toward town. The village would be sleepy today, Zanja guessed, but already she felt obscurely better. Medric had been right. She glanced over at him and found him looking at her.
"Well," she said, "we are going to town."
"Yes, is there something else we must do?" Karis asked, half polite and half teasing.
Medric shrugged. They kept walking. Zanja's boots went through the snow's crust, making progress difficult and warming her up inside her winter things. She shifted, sweaty, and pulled off her gloves to stuff them in a pocket.
When they reached the road to the village, Medric stopped. Karis's raven had landed in a nearby tree, waiting for them. "Zanja. Which way should we go?"
Zanja said, "You said we were going to town."
He shrugged again.
She pulled a card from her pouch at random. It was the card for East, the direction of the village. "Well. So you did have a vision."
"I see a lot of things," Medric said, apologetically. Then, scooping up a handful of snow, he bounced out onto the road. "Hey! Raven!" The bird fluttered up, but the snowball would have missed it by yards anyway.
Zanja burst out laughing.
"What are you trying to do, murder my ravens?" Karis asked mildly. Medric, grinning, made another snowball and launched it at her. She was a much larger and nearer target than the raven, and made no attempt to move as the snowball plastered itself on her torso.
Pulling her gloves on again, Zanja formed a snowball and threw it back at Medric. He flung his hands up when hit, as though slain, and even Karis laughed.
Wet, giddy, exhausted, they stumbled into town. Medric proposed they stop at a tavern for something to warm them up.
"Why are we here in the first place?" Zanja asked, remembering now, again. "Were you just trying to get us out of the house?" Reason enough, if so, but Medric was acting mysterious again; it was hard to tell.
"Pick us a tavern," Medric said grandly to her. He meant with the cards.
Zanja sighed and plucked one out. The Wall. That was part of the glyph-name for the tavern popularly called The Old Wall, two streets over. They started toward it. Zanja felt the weariness now, and the cold. She shivered. Karis must have been in even worse shape, though, with her threadbare coat, and the wind always went right through Medric.
They came around a corner. When Zanja lifted her head to look for the Old Wall's sign, a blaze of color caught her eye. It took her a moment to figure out exactly what it was: a store window, full of coats and scarves. One of the coats was bright red, and it was huge.
"Karis," she said. "Medric. Let's go in."
The shopkeeper was disappointed to be roused from her nice cup of tea to help the bedraggled customers, but once Zanja showed her money, she got noticeably kinder. "That coat? We made that as a sample," she said, but got it down from the window and offered it to Karis to try on.
Close up, it was a marvel. Bright red, with tassels hanging off it, all over. Karis did up the fastenings—it just fit—and took one of the tassels in her hand to look at wonderingly.
"Yes," Zanja said, "it's perfect. Karis, I'm buying it for you."
Karis cracked a smile. "You want to buy me this coat."
Zanja went up on her tiptoes to kiss her, snow-cold and damp. "Yes."
"All right."
Meanwhile, Medric had gotten himself entwined in a rack of scarves. "Do you think Emil would like this one?"
Karis nodded gravely, taking the question of a scarf as seriously as she did almost everything.
Medric bought the scarf, and Zanja bought the coat. Karis's old coat bundled under her arm, they stepped back out onto the street.
Karis's raven coasted down, landing on the cobbles at their feet. It laughed at Karis's coat.
"Well? Has something happened?" Zanja asked.
"Norina is awake," the raven said. "And Emil says we need flour."
"We'll have that drink first," Karis decided. "And then buy flour. The two of them should be able to handle Leeba."
Medric stretched out the scarf, packaged by the shopkeeper. "Here. Take this back for Emil."
The raven regarded the package dubiously, but sprang into the air and took it from him.
"Did you bring us out here all this way so you could buy a present for Emil?" Zanja asked Medric.
Their seer smiled and took Zanja's hand. "He did need a new scarf. That man never pays attention to his belongings."
Zanja smiled fondly back at him, rather threadbare himself. "Of course." She offered her other hand to Karis. "Whyever it was, I'm glad you did."
Arm in arm, Karis, Zanja, and Medric strolled down the street. Perhaps their family would work out after all.