“Have you ever ridden a horse before?”

Mara swallowed a sigh. “No, I’m sorry.”

She’d slept through most of the day, waking to a tent gone hot and stuffy with the afternoon’s warmth, Nick sprawled sideways on the broad pallet with his feet at her hip and his head pressed against the wall of the tent. Confident that he couldn’t break anything in the tent and would call out for her when he woke, she left him to rest and went in search of other life forms. When she’d emerged, she found Tiff standing nearby, beside a small paddock, two horses enclosed within the flimsy fencing.

“No need for apologies,” Tiff said. “Eli said you might need a lesson before you leave this evening.”

“Where is Eli?”

“Sleeping. Let’s get her saddled. Mizzo, vai.” She clicked her tongue, and the smaller of the two horses–a sleek black creature with a gray mane and tail–wandered over, nosing at Tiff’s ear. The woman pushed the massive head away with a twitch of her stern lips and slipped smoothly between the top and middle rungs of the fence.

“Come,” she said, waving for Mara to follow.

Mara eyed the narrow space between the two rungs. She’d be more comfortable–albeit less elegant–clambering over the top, but the fence appeared to be more of an illusion of containment than a true barrier–not something that could bear the weight of a grown woman. Or a small girl. Or a strong gust of wind.

With a sigh, she tried to emulate Tiff’s smooth movements, stepping over the middle rung and bending to slip her body through. She didn’t feel very graceful, but she made it. Until, of course, she tried to bring her other leg through, at which point her toe caught on the rung and she’d have fallen if not for Tiff’s hand on her arm.

Mara clung to her savior, face aflame, and disentangled her leg from the fence. “Sorry.”

“No need. You say you’ve never ridden before, but do you know your way around a horse?”

“I know not to come at them from behind.”

Tiff nodded, as if this was a promising sign for Mara’s horsemanship and not the absolute bare minimum of common sense required to move about in a world driven by horseflesh.

“It’s probably best you’ve not ridden. Mizzo is trained to voice and heel commands, which can be difficult for those more accustomed to riding with bit and bridle.”

“Okay,” Mara said, because Tiff was doing that thing again, where she said things and then watched, waiting for some kind of answer.

“Here, I’ll show you how to saddle her.”

Strange mannerisms aside, Tiff made an adept teacher. She let Mara do the work, offering instructions and corrections only when needed and otherwise letting her puzzle things out on her own. The saddle was a simple construction, nothing like the ornate war rigs she was used to seeing on Order mounts, and light enough that she could lift it herself onto the horse’s back.

Mizzo–Rizzo was the other horse in the paddock, a tawny thing with dark mane, tail, and stockings–was as mild as Tiff promised, standing placidly beneath Mara’s fumbling handiwork with the saddle. Once she was saddled, Mara peeked in on Nick–still sleeping–and went back for the rest of her lesson.

Tiff taught her how to mount and dismount and walked her through basic commands–hof for left, zeet for right, chak for forward, yoom for back, woo for slow down. Once she memorized the commands, the rest was fairly intuitive, as the horse was trained to respond to tone of voice and the pressure of her heels against its side. A sharp, abrupt command and a hard press induced a sharp, abrupt change. A light command and a tap of her heels induced a gradual one.

Tiff decided, between one round of instruction and the next, that Mara was competent. “Eli was right,” she said as Mara dismounted, giving the ever-patient Mizzo a pat on the shoulder. “You’re a quick learner.”

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The complement was so unexpected she almost stumbled back. “Thank you.”

“You’ll take good care of her too.” Not a question. If it was, Mara doubted she’d be leaving with the horse. Nonetheless, she nodded.

“I will. I promise.”

“I need to start supper. You get the saddle off and fetch your son.”

Mara did as she was told–happy to practice a task that felt useful and important and relevant to her current predicament. Tiff wandered off, but a shadow soon fell over the dirt by her side.

“Good lesson?”

She looked up, shielding her eyes with her hand until Eli stepped to the left so that his body blocked the warm evening sun. “Hey! I was starting to worry about you. How did you sleep?”

He shifted on his feet, running an aggravated hand through his hair. “Fine, thank you. Tiff says you’re a natural.”

“Tiff said that you said that I’m a quick learner,” she shot back, hefting the saddle to rest over the top rail of the fence as Tiff had instructed. She stood for a moment after she set it down, hands hovering over the leather, certain that the weight would send the whole construction toppling.

Eli watched her, lips quirking up in a smile. “You can trust the fence.”

“This fence tried to kill me earlier, I’ll have you know.”

He sighed wearily, hanging his head. “I leave you alone for, what? Three hours? And you’re being attacked by rogue fencing?”

“You think I’m happy about it? Step back.” She shooed him away from the fence so she could revisit the harrowing effort, this time paying extra attention to where her feet were, which of course meant she lost track of her head and smacked it hard on the upper rail.

“To the Depths,” she growled, rubbing the back of her head as she straightened. Eli stood with his arms crossed, watching her with deep, paternalistic pity. “Aren’t you going to offer a healing session?” she asked spitefully.

“Healers can’t fix wounded egos, Mara. A physik ought to know that. Perhaps a potion…”

“You’re a terrible friend,” she grumbled, pushing past him. “I’ll meet you in Tiff’s tent. Nick’s been sleeping like the dead. If I don’t get him up soon you’ll have to spell him to get him down tomorrow morning.”

They parted ways, and she roused her son, repacked her bag, and carried both to Tiff’s tent just as the sun was beginning to set.

Tiff prepared them a simple rice dish, frowning in abject disbelief when Mara proclaimed it, quite honestly, to be one of the best things she’d ever tasted.

“You’ve been in the field for too long,” the woman muttered, looking down at her own bowl.

“Well, yes. But I’d enjoy this anytime. It has to be the spices. There’s flavors in here I’ve never tasted. Do you have a recipe?”

Tiff shook her head. “It’s mostly just liota root and pink pepper.”

Mara searched the annals of her mind, wishing it wasn’t bad manners to leave the table and retrieve her Codex. “Liota is the one with the pink flowers?”

Tiff shrugged. “Couldn’t say. It only grows at the border of the Wastelands, and I’ve never been farther north than Prosco. I buy it powdered. I can package some for you when you go.”

“Oh, I couldn’t–” Eli’s spoon clacked against his bowl–an uncharacteristic bit of clumsiness. “Thank you,” she adjusted. “Thank you, very much. If I remember correctly, it has medicinal properties too. It’s good for blood flow.”

Tiff nodded. “Makes you sweat, my father said. Good in the summer months.”

And the winter months too, Mara imagined, thinking of numb fingers and toes and the ache of cold, sluggish blood.

When they finished eating, Tiff slipped a generous serving of vivid green powder into a waxpaper envelope, and Mara tucked it into her special seed box where it would be safe, mind already conjuring new brews in which to use it. Ingredients were always more potent when they were gifted, even if they had no inherent magical properties.

Their farewells were brief and unemotional. In the fading dusk, Tiff shook Mara’s hand like they were merchants concluding a business transaction, but her eye contact was relentless and pointed. Don’t forget what I told you, it seemed to say.

Tiff didn’t hug Eli goodbye, but they did stand close for a few moments before he mounted Rizzo, heads bent and talking in whispers that Mara couldn’t make out, and not for want of trying. At the end, Tiff nodded once, crisply, and squeezed his forearm.

Mara decided there might be sexual tension there. It really was difficult to say.

They mounted, Nick with Eli until Mara had some practice under her belt. Mara promptly demonstrated the soundness of this decision by accidentally sending Mizzo on a slow walk backwards. She corrected, ignoring Eli’s raised eyebrows and the fierce disappointment surely lurking behind Tiff’s blank expression.

Once they were all headed in a forward direction, Tiff walked them to the edge of the herd. She stopped there as they rode on, standing with the dogs milling at her feet, and Mara watched over her shoulder as the woman’s silhouette shrank to a miniscule shadow and was finally swallowed, and all that remained of her homestead was a white slip of smoke winding up to dissipate amongst the stars.