He smiled. “They were my mother’s,” he said. “My father had them made for her as a wedding gift. I intended to have them polished and sharpened for you.”

“Knives as a wedding gift?” she asked.

Rudolfo shrugged. “They are fine blades.”

She laughed and leaned close to him. He slipped an arm around her. “I can think of better gifts,” she said. “But they are indeed fine blades.”

They stood silent, then, watching the night around them. In the morning, they would strike camp and make their way home ahead of the winter’s last snow before spring. When he returned, Rudolfo knew that a desk buried in paper awaited him. There were refugees to help acclimate. And the library construction would be gearing up with the promise of spring. Soon, the sun would be out and the bookmakers’ tents would be filled with mechoservitors as they wrote their books and filled the basements with volume upon volume in a river that threatened flood. Added to that, there was the threat that grew to their north and west with the advent of the Machtvolk and the dark gospel they preached-and the trouble he now smelled to the south in Pylos and Turam.

And what of this Crimson Empress?

There was enough work ahead to keep him up nights in his den wandering a Whymer Maze of paper. He would gradually grow accustomed again to the feel of a desk and a chair beneath him instead of a horse or a ship. And of a warm, shared bed instead of a solitary cot.

And mixed in with the work, there would also be a Gypsy wedding to plan and a child to show his Ninefold Forest Houses so that his people could meet the next Gypsy King.

He would keep living despite the dead he buried. He would love his wife and his son, and he would spend himself for the light he’d gained from his time in darkness.

Even in Desolation, Rudolfo thought, life asserts itself.

Unbidden, the song from earlier found his lips and he began to sing it. Jin Li Tam looked to him, her eyes wide to see him sing, and he could not blame her. The last time he’d sung had been the Firstborn Feast when she’d been abed with their child. And the time before that? It was so far back that Rudolfo could not remember.

But he sang now, and the strains of it echoed out into the night.

In the distance, a wolf howled.

And above them, the full moon watched and lent them its watery light.

The Watcher laid down his pen, pushed back his unfinished gospel, and walked to the mouth of the cave.

Sunlight called him forth and he followed it, drawing a long silver flute from the folds of his robe.

Holding it to his mouth and placing fingers just so, he forced air into it and called the kin-raven to himself as he’d called so many other birds before.

He waited for the dark messenger, and when it landed heavily upon a boulder, it regarded him. This one had much life yet in it, and it gladdened the Watcher to know it.

“Bear a message home,” he told the kin-raven, and waited while the bird cocked its head and opened its beak to receive his words.

“The Last Son is in exile-spared to fulfill the scriptures-and the kin-healing of Frederico’s line is complete. The Child of Promise has his forty years, and the Great Mother has indebted herself to your grace. The secret faith is now preached in the open, and the Machtvolk arise from their sorrow to take back their given home.”

The Watcher paused. “Time is of the essence,” he finally said. “The Age of the Crimson Empress is at hand.”

He raised the flute to his lips and blew again, this time softly. Spreading its great wings, the kin-raven lifted and sped south.

The Watcher watched it as it flew, and when it was nothing but a speck upon the horizon, he turned and went back to his cave. He would finish this gospel, and perhaps when he did, he would walk through the forest near the Machtvolk shrine and listen for the hymns they sang there.

Clanking and clacking, the ancient mechoservitor slipped back into the shadows and took up his waiting pen.