“And you don’t want to wait for her?” he asked. “Or more importantly, Eleanor?”

My face fell a little. “I’d love for her to be here. But I don’t want to wait a day more to be Rob’s wife.”

He nodded. “Maybe then you’ll start to call me Saer.”

“He calls you Quincy, not Saer,” I told him with a grin. “Only Margaret calls you Saer.”

“Yes,” he said. “Ladies I hold in high esteem may call me by my given name.”

I nodded. “I’ll consider it, Winchester.”

He smiled and bowed to me. “Very well; I will take it as my solemn duty to distract the unwitting groom.”

I laughed. “Thank you!” I told him, and the girls tugged me fast away to Edwinstowe.

Missy brought me back to her house, and it seemed the small home were filling with females. Mistress Morgan scowled at me, looking me over from head to toe and back again. “Well,” she said. “Ellie, fetch some water, and I’ll start scrubbing.”

I looked at my hands, caked with dirt from digging out peat.

Mistress Morgan saw where I were looking. “Trust me, your hands are the least of your worries, young lady.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I told her.

She nodded. “If it matters, I’ve long since owed you an apology. I shamed you for stealing, and all you ever wanted was to help my family. I’m sorry for that.”

My heart swelled up. “It’s never needed,” I told her. “But it means a lot, all the same.”

She gave one final sharp nod. “In the morning, we’ll send the girls for flowers. Perfect time of year for it.”

“Flowers?” I questioned, but she already went to the kitchen, and Bess sat me down.

“You heard her,” Bess said with a smile. “Time to scrub!”

They were at me for hours. I had little idea what they were doing, only that I had no modesty by the end of it. Bess cleaned my hands careful, especially the half hand with the damaged stumps. I told her she didn’t have to, that she should rest, and she just smiled and pushed off my protests.

I’d lost my sister far too early in life, and in running from home with Joanna, I’d given up my only chance at a mother. I’d never had this, females that wanted to be part of my life. That wanted to be part of all my life.

“Thank you,” I whispered to Bess. “Thank you for . . . this.”

She beamed at me. “Don’t be silly,” she told me. “We’re family now. We’ll be family as long as you want it.”

“Even though I’m some stuck-up lady now?” I asked her.

She laughed. “In truth, you’re a lot nicer now than when you were a thief pretending to be a boy. So if it’s the ladyship part of you, I’ll take it.” I frowned, and she laughed again, gentler. “I think you just have so many more people that care for you than you’ve ever been willing to admit, Scar.”

It were strange, and wondrous, and made water push up behind my eyes, that maybe she weren’t wrong.

Missy popped her head round the corner into the kitchen. “Is she done? It’s done!”

I frowned. “What?”

“Yes,” Bess said, toweling my clean, soft hands dry.

Missy hopped into the kitchen with a dress. My dress, sort of—it were made from a blue dress I’d worn the night Rob became sheriff, that last happy night with him—but it were different, the light blue underskirts repurposed to make the whole dress, and the old velvet overlay changed to just bare edge it in dark blue, shot through with silver. The skirt were layers of soft blue fabrics that must have come from still other dresses. The whole thing shimmered and looked soft and sweet.

My breath caught. Were this meant to be something I could wear? Could I be soft and sweet? Were I meant to be, once I were a wife?

“Look,” Missy told me, flipping it round. She stuck her finger through two small loops. “For your knives!”

I laughed. I laughed so hard I started crying, and I hugged her close to me.

When they finally let me rest, I curled up in a chair by a dying fire. There, in the slow-darkening light and quiet, I finally pulled out Rob’s letter.

SCARLET, 132.

I wish I could paint. I’m awful at it, and I’m sorry. Or even sketch. I’ll try with words, pale though they are.

I left the castle early today. There was frost on the ground, hopefully our last, and the cold made my breath plume out in these big clouds. It seemed like a fairy story, or like Avalon, shrouding me in mist. Like if I just kept breathing, I could will magic into being. I could make things change for us, or I could make you appear to me.

The frost made everything glitter. It was one of those perfect frosts, where every blade of grass looks special and beautiful because of ice like lace on it. Even with the frost, the forest is green again, and this was like a crystal green, like a prism around the green.

We buried John in the graveyard of the monastery, and this morning—like many others—I went to visit him. To talk. To tell him he was right about us all along. He knew I loved you from the first. He said I was being an ass and should just tell you, and I told him to stop meddling—which led to a rather massive fight. You’ll remember it, that first winter—you and Tuck and Much had a hard time pulling us apart. John slugged Much in the face by accident and you wouldn’t speak to him for a week. You two thought we were fighting about one of the tavern girls, and that started the fight—but really, we were fighting about you. And what I should do.