f and the rain finding its way down my collar, and for a long moment neither of us said anythin

said. "The ranger s

likes its wol

. "There is a motel in to

bunk here. It is

nto the stoop. "I know what you are. I am no

" I picked up my bag. "It is raining, Wren. I have been driving for four hours, and

riverbank, patient and ready, and then she stepped

f of old ranger ledgers going back forty years. She stood by the door

ollow me when I go out. You do not ask where I go. And if a Council

ree

at. She had been

it ag

the edge of the bunk and pulled off my boots. "

oved an i

about the ri

u d

the wall, and she went to her own bunk and sat on it with

iles,"

ha

hen it pulled again. I felt the exact moment you turned onto the spur." Her jaw tightened. "I hav

hat. I felt her too, and I wa

e," I said. "That is

he lay down on her bunk with her boots still on. "If you are

her face

ceiling, and the bond went quiet between us, not gone, just settled, like a dog that has finall

out. Wren's breathing was deep and even across the roo

aken her

he tipped one had a groove worn into it that no normal boot should have. The leather was spl

I g

loor on bare feet and picked up the boot, and it was lighter than it should have been, and when I turne

ather, a brass clasp gone green, and a corner of a pa

th it and opened it under

that hand before, on a Council record I was not supposed to have read. The pages after it were a pack's life

found t

xt to a sum of money and a timber allotment. Vance. The last entry had a date besid

ds wer

bunk creak

on the ledger in my hands. She did not look surprised. She looked tired, and a little s

. "Now you know w

re

t. She held the book against her chest with both arms, the way you hold something you have carried a ve

going to

were you go

the name on the page that I had seen written in

you known that Vance was t

d not

d the order. I have seen his signature bef

ren's arms tightene

tly. "You have already read the pag

ond was pulling hard, and I said the th

I was t